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Igg LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, ggjl 



BOOKS BY 
CHARLES B. NEWCOMB 



ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD 

261 pages Cloth $1.50 

DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL 

282 pages Cloth $i-5° 



BY KATHARINE H* NEWCOMB 



HELPS TO RIGHT LIVING 

52 chapters Cloth Gilt top . . . $1.25 



DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL 



BY 

CHARLES B. NEWCOMB 

Author of 
"All's Right with the World" 



''Ho, ye who suffer/ k?iow ye suffer from yourselves. 
None else compels — no other holds you that ye live or die." 

SlDDARTHA 

" It is o?ily as a 7nan ptits off from himself all external 
support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and 
to prevail!' 

Emerson 



BOSTON 

LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 

1900 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED 

Library of Cor^ro** e 
Office uf the 

APR 2 1 1900 

Krister of Copyright* 




Copyright, 1900, by Charles B. Newcomb. 
All rig Jits reserved. 



Discovery of a Lost Trail. 



jiotktotll una CburttiiU $3m>s 

BOSTON, U.S.A. 



o\-m\ 



FIRST OOPY, 



To my Daughters 

IDfvatnia anb /Ifcarian 

in whose dear companionship life seems ahvays 
gladsome and joyous, I dedicate this volume, 

C. B. N. 



It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, I 
will have thousands of globes and all time. 

Walt Whitman. 

Let us go up at once and possess the land, for we are 

well able to overcome it. 

Caleb, Prince of Judalu 



PREFACE. 



There is nothing new in this book. It is a simple study of 
that strange and beautiful thing which we call life. It con- 
tains only a few familiar signboards that have helped some 
bewildered travellers to find their way in paths that seemed 
mountainous and difficult. 

Plain suggestions of confidence, patience, -gladness, and 
decision often bring us back to the trail we have lost through 
the uncertainty of our own power and freedom. 

When we really are assured of the right road we can truly 
believe that life is a song and not a cry. 

When we can feel confident that all wanderers will at last 
come through the stress of storm and fog in which they have 
seemed to miss their way we are cheered and comforted. 

The lights of the hospice gleam in the darkness, and we 
know that within are abundant food and warmth for every 
belated traveller. 

We are sometimes gladdened by a fresh touch upon the 
strings of the harp of Life. 

The sounding of a few old chords may soothe and comfort 
us like the cradle-songs of infancy. 

The writer has not aimed at metaphysical fugues or 
oratorios. 

If the reader is looking for novelties in philosophy, or sub- 
lime strains in the harmonies of thought, let him close this 
volume with the preface, for critics will find it without rhyme 
or reason. 

There are, doubtless, many worldly-wise ones who will 
protest impatiently that these teachings are not practical. 



6 PREFACE. 

This objection will come from some to whom the life of 
the soul has been but a theory for intellectual analysis. 

It will not come from any who have passed the threshold 
of spiritual experience. 

It will come oftenest from those whose "practical" 
methods have never gained for them the success or happiness 
they sought. 

If these pages should aid any troubled soul to discover 
the inner light that shines upon the path of life — if they 
should open the spiritual vision to discern the mighty hosts 
encamped about us to deliver us — the lost trail will indeed 
be found, and as fellow-pilgrims we will go on our way 
rejoicing. 

CHARLES B. NEWCOMB. 



CONTENTS 



I. The Lost Trail 9 

II. Confidence 31 

III. Toiling in Rowing 53 

IV. Patience 75 

V. Master Mariners 99 

VI. Will 117 

VII. The Evolution of Power . . . 139 

VIII. Decision 161 

IX. Thought Tonics 183 

X. Expression 203 

XI. The Power of Gladness . . . 225 

XII. A Plea for Matter .... 245 

XIII. The Song of Life 265 



(7) 



THE LOST TRAIL. 

So must you press forward to open your soul to the 
Eternal. But it must be the Eternal that draws forth your 
strength and beauty, not desire of growth. 

For in the one case you develop in the luxuriance of 
purity, in the other you harden by the forcible passion for 
personal stature. — " Light on the Path.'''' 

It is related that in the ancient days there were 
rich mines of gold in Central Africa. These 
mines yielded millions to the Egyptian govern- 
ment under the early Pharaohs. 

In the succeeding wars for existence mining was 
neglected, and all knowledge of these valuable 
deposits was lost for several centuries. Later the 
Romans discovered and reopened the gold fields. 
They constructed a stone road up the Nile Valley. 
This road stretched out across the desert to the 
ancient mines. But it was afterwards neglected 
and buried in sand by the hot winds. Portions of 
it have been found at different times by various 
explorers, but the place of the hidden treasures is 
no longer known, and the broken trail ends in a 
trackless desert. 

This page from a chapter of history has its 
correspondence in the thought life of the race and 

(9) 



10 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

in many an individual experience. Man's undiscov- 
ered country is the largest part of his domains. 
His undeveloped resources are his richest treasures ; 
his latent powers are his mightiest forces. In the 
struggle for existence, his spiritual nature has 
been often buried by the hot sands of his selfish- 
ness and mercenary ambitions. Greed of gold 
and worldly power has chilled and blighted his 
higher purposes. The race has often fallen into 
periods which we call " Dark Ages." The mines 
of truth have been neglected and forgotten. The 
roads which lead to them have been covered up. 
From time to time some poet or philosopher has 
found stretches of the lost trail, some bits of the 
paths of wisdom ; but these discoverers have been 
as voices crying in the wilderness. Such were 
the Egyptian sages, the Hebrew prophets, the 
Greek philosophers. Such were Hermes, Isaiah, 
Socrates, Plato, and Zeno. Such were also Bud- 
dha, Zoroaster, Jesus. Sometimes these voices 
have been heard in the later centuries breaking 
in upon the tumult of material life and proclaim- 
ing, even in the senate chamber and the market 
place, that there were other and surer roads to 
happiness than those that most men followed — 
that there was fabulous wealth in every soul and 
magical powers in every life, awaiting the unfold- 
ment of the master mind. 

When we are tired of the aimless wandering in 



THE LOST TRAIL. I I 

trackless deserts, dissatisfied with the broken 
cisterns and mirage of purely material pleasures, 
we can recover the lost trail and find in the higher 
nature a wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and 
living fountains which are inexhaustible. In this 
discovery alone do we find rest and peace. 

When our activities are in rhythmic accord with 
the law of our being, disappointment and failure 
are impossible. Fear throws us out of step and 
makes us stumble. Back of fear is always 
selfishness. 

One may safely walk over a high trestle in the 
dark when he cannot see the depths below him or 
hear the noise of the rushing river. He easily 
measures the regular interval between the timbers, 
and adjusts his step to cross it without faltering. 
But let the flash of a lantern reveal the distance to 
the eye, or the tumbling of the waters alarm the 
ear, and immediately the senses are thrown info 
confusion, and the movement becomes a matter of 
difficulty to the timid traveller. 

When we look off from a great height upon 
illimitable space we sometimes feel bewildered and 
dazed. 

An undeveloped nature would perhaps be frozen 
with horror if it could see into the far depths of 
its past and hear the rushing of the river of its 
life as it had swept down the channel of the ages 
in the long history of evolution. It would be par- 



12 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

alyzed with terror if it could look into the illimitable 
future along the infinite line of vanishing perspec- 
tive that its life will follow. It would be like 
the dove sent forth by Noah into the great wilder- 
ness of waters that could find no resting-place for 
the sole of her foot. 

Light sometimes bewilders as well as darkness. 
The electric lantern is too dazzling for use in the 
lighthouses of the coast. There is danger of blind- 
ing the navigator, and making it difficult for him 
to judge of distances. A strong light misplaced 
will so deepen the shadows of a road as to exag- 
gerate its difficulties. We stumble at fancied 
obstructions that are only shadows in a. smooth 
path. 

We lose the rhythm of our steps, and when 
we come to a real impediment we think that, too, 
is an illusion. Intoxication is as possible on the 
higher planes as on those of intellect and sense. 
There is such a thing as metaphysical inebriety. 
Its sufferers are often those who have done good 
work. They find themselves crippled and inca- 
pacitated, to the surprise of themselves and their 
pupils. This fact calls for a new diagnosis in 
mental pathology. 

There are two classes of mind in the community : 
one class believes in matter, and scoffs at spirit ; 
the other believes in spirit, and scoffs at matter. 
Each accuses the other of mistaking- shadows for 



THE LOST TRAIL. 1 3 

substance, and each gives a different definition to 
reality. If we found that either class could walk 
without stumbling, we might safely choose our 
guides. But when they stumble alike, we must 
conclude that they are making similar mistakes. 

Cannot we sin against matter as well as against 
spirit? Who can be trusted to discriminate at all 
times between the shadow and the substance ? May 
it not be true that both are substance, and both 
shadows, at different times, and in different rela- 
tions? 

In the subjective realms the objective seems a 
dream — an unreality. It is a mistake to think 
that dreams and unrealities attach only to the 
mortal sense. 

In the objective life that which relates to the 
subjective plane seems the unreal and undefined. 

In the night the experiences of the day appear 
far off and vague. When we awaken in the morn- 
ing we remember the night as a dream of bliss 
or horror. 

So do we live in two worlds or states of con- 
sciousness. We cannot easily make either real 
while experiencing the other. 

We have every reason to know that this is as 
true after death as before, and continues till we 
have gained an intelligent consciousness of our 
power to master life in both conditions, realizing 
that both are actual and true. Until we have 



14 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

reached this point of understanding we are only 
dreamers at the best, and just as wrong when we 
deny the reality of matter as when we deny that of 
spirit. 

Matter can avenge itself as well as spirit. For 
every atom is an individual intelligence. 

The great question of life is one of poise — of 
equilibrium. 

This is not gained with fanciful theories. 

The inebriate is disturbed in his brain — the 
glutton in his stomach. 

The temperate man compels both meat and 
drink to serve his wants, and maintains his balance 
through preserving normal circulation. 

If the materialistic stomach is often out of order, 
so is the metaphysical head. It is unsafe for the 
stomach to scorn the head or the head the stomach. 
Neither can safely call the other a dream and an 
illusion, for the mucous membrane and nerve cells 
are very similar in both. If our philosophies are 
to be practical and useful we must not forget that 
truth is relative as well as absolute. 

Ethical propositions must be shown in their 
right relations to the life of the individual of the 
present day. Truth is not complex and occult. 
We stumble oftenest at its simplicity. We do not 
properly distinguish light and shadow and so we 
are misled by both. Life is a constant attempt 
to realize ideals. 



THE LOST TRAIL. I 5 

The mind of man is a crucible in which the ideal 
is transmuted into the real. This process of trans- 
mutation is the spiritual chemistry we are here 
to learn. 

There is no poverty of material in the labora- 
tory. Every individual in every hour has the 
opportunity of all the happiness of which he is 
capable through understanding of himself. 

Some so-called metaphysicians begin their teach- 
ings with good basic propositions, but soon cut 
their ground cables and carry their pupils to the 
clouds, leaving them to get down again to terra 
firma as best they may and find their own way 
back to reason. 

It would be well for us to begin to think of 
climbing up to the animal plane instead of talking 
so much of living above it. 

The popular illusion concerning the real mean- 
ing of spirituality is becoming daily more apparent 
in metaphysical circles. 

The immediate requirements of this planet 
earth are in the line of a higher and more perfect 
type of animal life in the human race. It can 
never be realized through a supercilious contempt 
for our animal functions and denial of them as 
illusory. 

Spiritual progress implies a better understand- 
ing and appreciation of life in all its forms, a 
more complete adjustment of our relations to the 



1 6 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

material world, a mastery of its forces through 
intelligent recognition in place of blind antagonism. 
The inevitable result of this is perfection of species 
along the lines upon which nature has always 
worked, and not the substitution of new methods. 
In this way only can we show that man is not the 
bond-slave of heredity. 

No matter what ancestral trait has been repro- 
duced, no matter what taint in the blood has 
shown itself anew, it can be wholly overcome in 
any individual life. It can be eradicated from the 
system when the soul has been aroused to its 
work. 

Man is his own creator, and can dominate what 
his mind has expressed. He can change at will 
the colors or the texture of the thought with which 
he builds. 

It was once customary in Jerusalem for pilgrims 
during the holy week to crowd about the sepul- 
chre and wait for the appearance of the sacred 
fire. Every one held a taper in his hand and 
watched through long hours of darkness for the 
glimmer from the tomb. At length when it ap- 
peared those nearest to the cave would light their 
tapers, others kindled theirs from those of their 
friends, and so the flame would spread till the 
entire church was brilliantly illuminated. 

Many had journeyed from distant lands upon 
the accumulated savings of a lifetime that they 



THE LOST TRAIL. 1 7 

might take part in this ceremony and afterward 
be baptized in the Jordan. 

To-day there are many in America who look to 
the East for the sacred fire and baptism, many 
who believe that only in India can the highest 
truth be acquired. Their most cherished desire 
is to find the Mahatmas and sit at their feet as 
disciples. 

As we once suffered from the disease of " An- 
glomania," so are we in danger now from " Hin- 
dumania." It is doubtful if any of our Hindu 
friends have brought us a thought that was not 
already known to careful students of philosophy 
in our western world. We are slow to recognize 
the fact that truth is universal and not geograph- 
ical. 

It is everywhere present like the ether. It per- 
vades all life, and its right interpretation is acces- 
sible to every earnest soul. We do not find it 
more abundant or easily obtainable upon one day 
of the week than on another. Truth recognizes 
no special holiness in time or place, regards no 
era of history as sacred or profane, holds no 
peculiar reverence for any prophet or apostle. 

Every life is in itself a voice of truth. We 
need not travel to India, Japan, or Palestine in our 
search for wisdom. There are no sacred flames 
or fountains except in our own souls. These are 
never uncovered till we are done with all our wor- 



I 8 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

ship of the external. The inner voice speaks 
only in the silence when all other sounds are 
hushed. 

When we have recognized the ground whereon 
we stand as holy ground, we are ready to hear the 
voice of the spirit, ready to drink of the living 
waters and to eat the bread that cometh down from 
Heaven. Every man and woman is a revelation. 
Every book is inspired. God is in all things and 
in all places. Why should we imagine such 
narrow limitations to Divinity? Is not this itself, as 
Kingsley claimed, the only atheism — to fancy that 
there is but one Holy Land in all the planet, 
one inspired volume, and one Divine Man in all 
the ages of humanity ? 

There are two lines of influence constantly 
operating upon every life, of which we are very 
apt to remain in ignorance. One comes from 
the unseen intelligences drawn to us by con- 
genial thought. These find satisfaction in our 
atmosphere through similarity of tastes. Most 
of them are unknown to us as individuals. We 
receive the influence of their companionship, 
whether it be spiritual or sensual, and at the 
same time we exercise a certain power over 
them. 

The other influence is that of our own thought 
impulses. These we have set in operation at some 
period far back, perhaps in former lives, and have 



THE LOST TRAIL. 1 9 

not yet outgrown them. No mental weakness is 
sloughed off, or strength developed, without in- 
telligent recognition of our powers and fixed 
purpose of accomplishment. The errors of the 
objective life must be corrected on the objective 
plane, — just as the note that was drawn yesterday 
and made due at a fixed date and place must be 
redeemed, — not in our sleep, but in our waking 
hours. 

If we have indulged in avarice, dishonesty, 
licentiousness, we must doubtless continue through 
successive lives to manifest these taints until they 
have filled us with disappointment and sorrow, and 
been finally conquered by the ascendency of larger 
thought and more wholesome desire. This work 
cannot be done in the subjective life. We take up 
our unfinished tasks with each new day. When 
we awaken we find them awaiting us, whether we 
have slept well or ill — ten hours or one. We 
do not escape them by changing our garments. 
Whenever one returns to earth's vibrations he 
moves on the lines of least resistance, and responds 
most readily to the chords with which he was most 
familiar when he left. The time since his depart- 
ure has made no change in his uncompleted task. 
He comes to his own atmosphere. He opens his 
books at the unfinished lesson. These old prob- 
lems doubtless entail much suffering upon us when 
we again resume them. There is, perhaps, better 



20 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

reason than we have supposed for the almost 
universal restlessness of infancy and the diseases 
of early childhood. 

Of what are these the expression and the con- 
sequence if not of causes dating back to former 
incarnations ? If the future is to be the result of 
the present, as all mankind believes, why is not 
the present the result of the past? 

Before the returning soul has got firm hold upon 
its tool, the body, and gained a clear understand- 
ing of its tasks, may it not find itself uneasy and 
disturbed? 

When we recall the distressful conditions under 
which many die, and the dissatisfied states of mind 
in which most pass out of the objective life, may it 
not give us a clue to many of the difficulties of 
our earliest years? The strong desire to solve 
our personal problems, which is the governing 
purpose of every life, brings us back to the material 
world sooner or later, according to the strength 
of the impulse within us. 

The same law manifests itself in what we call 
spirit communication. We find that most intelli- 
gences in their first attempts to control " sensi- 
tives " or " psychics " throw upon them the mental 
and physical conditions under which they passed 
away. 

This also is true without regard to the time 
that has elapsed since death. The returning spirit 



THE LOST TRAIL. 21 

is compelled to strike first his old keynote in 
matter, as a music-box starts at the point at 
which the tune was broken off, when it is wound 
up to play again. 

Until we get accustomed to any particular situ- 
ation we do not find much pleasure in it. This is 
the case in passing from the astral to the material 
state at birth, and equally so in passing into spirit 
life — Death to one condition is always birth into 
another. 

There appears to be frequently a sense of dissat- 
isfaction and bewilderment attending the change, 
whether through mortal birth or death. 

Our earliest experiences upon either side are 
often disappointing, distasteful, and unreal, unless 
we have learned the science of spiritual adjust- 
ment which must be applied alike upon all planes. 

Metaphysics without spiritualism is like Chris- 
tianity without its gospels. Its principles cannot 
be clearly stated or intelligently employed. The 
science of metaphysics is based upon the discovery 
of man's spiritual powers. For this we are chiefly 
indebted to the reopening of communication be- 
tween the seen and the unseen worlds. In these 
latter years it has been mainly due to the sturdy 
and persistent efforts of the spiritualists. It has 
been truly the discovery of a lost trail. The inves- 
tigations of phenomena have been made with great 
care and thoroughness. Many of their phases have 



2 2 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

been most indisputably established upon strictly- 
scientific grounds and by men of recognized 
authority in scientific circles. 

Spirit vibrations are beyond the perception of 
the human eye, until their rate has been reduced 
to that of matter. As we increase the psychic 
force we raise vibrations to a higher speed, making 
impossible the manifestation to the senses. 

Much of our machinery, like the electric fan, is 
invisible in rapid motion. As we reduce the 
power, and slow down, it comes within the very 
narrow range of human vision. 

Communication between mortal and that which 
we call spirit requires often the use of a medium, 
who serves a purpose somewhat similar to that of the 
electric battery in the communications of teleg- 
raphy. 

Before the circuit can be established, the brain 
of the psychic must be quickened, and that of the 
spirit intelligence lowered to a point of harmony. 

This is equally true upon our usual planes of 
life. We cannot really understand each other 
without some points of mental contact through 
currents of sympathetic vibration. 

A great hindrance to the highest spiritual work 
to-day is the prejudice and fear which many enter- 
tain of spiritualism. 

There are metaphysical teachers and healers who 
stubbornly refuse to recognize this source of power. 



THE LOST TRAIL. 2$ 

Thus, they fail of true accord with the operator at 
the other end of the line. Their work, in conse- 
quence, is cramped and limited. The ultimate 
results of such blind egotism are always disastrous. 

Many who were once successful to a marked de- 
gree have been obliged to abandon their field of use- 
fulness because of their persistent folly in denying 
truth that was distasteful to them. It is necessary 
that we should be hospitable to the whole gospel 
of good. There is nothing in the universe to fear 
and nothing of evil that can do us injury except as 
we make conditions possible. There is infinitely 
more awaiting our discovery in the mines of 
spritual treasure than we have yet conceived. We 
must dig deep for that which is most precious. 
The miner often handles tons of rock in order to 
secure a few ounces of gold. 

Objection is sometimes made to the claims of 
spirit communication, on the ground that it is 
commonplace. 

While this is often true, it is one of the best evi- 
dences of the reality of the phenomena. In the 
ordinary interchange of thought in conversation 
and correspondence, do we find much that is sub- 
lime? If we were to break away from all our 
friends save those who made genuine contributions 
of real value to our intellectual life, what isolation 
we should suffer ! Is not humanity mostly defined 
by " commonplace " ? 



24 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

We cannot claim a very high development as yet 
in our own phase of existence. We have no reason 
to suppose that any very different conditions are 
reached immediately by the majority of those who 
pass through the change of death. It does not 
affect one's character to leave off the clothes that 
he wore yesterday. 

We have no reason to attribute special knowl- 
edge or power to one who has dropped his robe 
of flesh ; nor have we any reason in that fact to 
decline to recognize another whose spiritual ad- 
vancement makes it possible for him to render 
valuable assistance from the astral plane. In 
either case we may be seriously at fault 

If we depend upon the psychic rather than the 
spiritual faculties with which every human being is 
equipped, if we lean habitually upon mediums 
and astrologers as guides instead of using our 
own perceptions, we are like schoolboys in the 
lower forms who think they cannot recite their 
lessons without "cribs." 

The scholar dispenses with these helps. He 
respects his own intelligence and makes his own 
researches while welcoming gladly all assistance 
that may be rendered by those who have the right 
to be called masters through superior develop- 
ment. 

Love is the principle of power. It teaches us 
our intimate relations to our fellows. It identifies 



THE LOST TRAIL. 2$ 

us with the supreme life and wisdom, upon all 
planes of existence. 

Love kills out the sense of separateness from 
that which is above us and below us in the scale 
of being. This weakness, upon which so many 
pride themselves, is always the mark of a narrow 
intellect and an unloving nature. It shows a want 
of the culture it affects. If we were not akin to 
the meanest of our fellow-men we would not find 
ourselves associated with them in the same school of 
life. It is possible we may have advanced in certain 
studies to a higher class than some, but as long 
as the experiences of humanity are necessary to 
us all we have no reason for exclusiveness. The 
pride we foster shuts us off from much that would 
be helpful to us. It impairs our spiritual circula- 
tion. We neither give nor receive in fulness. It 
is a sacrifice of power. It brings a sense of lone- 
liness which is its penalty. We are not separated 
from any life in either the seen or unseen realms 
to which we are related by a bond of spiritual 
sympathy. A true recognition of the meaning of 
life opens to every one the gladness and freedom 
that belong by the right of eminent domain to 
every human soul. 

There is no such thing as a rational melancholy. 
It is a purely selfish impulse. Service is its sov- 
ereign remedy. 

The opportunities of life leave us without excuse 



26 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

for indolence or sadness. Healthy lungs find 
always inspiration and expression possible in an 
invigorating atmosphere. 

We know that our supply of air is inexhaustible, 
and earth's latitudes are broad enough to give us 
choice of any climate we prefer. 

Each of us makes his own thought climate, 
and, if it is not satisfactory and healthful, we must 
look for the cause within ourselves. It is not a 
matter of locality. External conditions are always 
the expression of the inner cause. We will not 
find in the " beyond " the balm we seek, for all 
the joys of heaven cannot help a discontented mind. 

True life is unutterable sweetness, in which all 
the shadows of our yesterdays are woven into the 
soft tints of the morning sunshine. 

Upon the side of Mt. Blanc there is a little 
patch of verdure called "Le jardin." It lies in the 
midst of eternal snows, but in summer and winter 
it is always green. 

In the wilds of Arabia are garden spots among 
the sands. The desert lies about them upon every 
side — a great wilderness of desolation. The little 
oases are always fresh and beautiful, with grace- 
ful palms and bubbling fountains. Sparkling 
rivulets trickle off among the tree roots, and on 
their borders are bright and delicate flowers. 

Amid the waves of the Atlantic, hundreds of 
leagues from any shore, are islands of tropical 



THE LOST TRAIL. 2*] 

beauty. Among their orange groves and vine- 
yards one forgets that all about him spreads an 
ocean that is often swept with furious gales, and 
breaks with savage violence on rocky shores. 

In every life there is a garden spot, however cold 
and deep may be the snows that lie about it. In 
the midst of every desert there is some oasis filled 
with refreshing fountains. 

In every sea of trouble there is some enchanted 
isle. 

We may surround ourselves in our thought life 
with fruits and flowers of rare loveliness. We may 
find the springs of gladness bubbling up within the 
soul. 

When we have recovered the lost trail of a spir- 
itual purpose it leads us out of the shadows of the 
passing day and into the shine of the eternal 
years. 

We no longer wander in uncertain ways op- 
pressed with troubled thoughts, for we have found 
the path that leadeth unto life. 

In all the time of suffering we have never been 
far from the right road. At any moment that 
we choose to yield to higher impulses we are 
guided quickly to the ways of peace and pleasant- 
ness. The lines of least resistance for the soul are 
always those of truth and righteousness. 

The supreme law is supreme love. 



28 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Life is a palace — not a hovel. It has no doors 
that shut out happiness. 

Life is a banquet — not a funeral. 

We find this true when we turn up the lights. 

Trouble is a dream of sense. When we awaken 
to real life the shadows flee away and all is well. 



Death holds no terror for those who have 
learned the lesson of life. 



THE LOST TRAIL. 29 



When we have really discovered life's resources 
we know there is no "better land" than this in 
which we are unfolding realization. 

We do not have to die to escape suffering. 

We do not escape suffering by dying. 



30 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



Spiritual science is the study of God in man ; 
spirit expressed in matter. 

As the sun to the material world, so is " Sol" or 
" Soul " to the spiritual. 

God is man's inspiration. Man is God's expres- 
sion. 

God is subjective man. Man is objective God. 



CONFIDENCE. 3 1 

II. 

CONFIDENCE. 

" All forces have been steadily employed to complete and 
delight me. 

Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul." — Walt 
Whitman . 

The shadow land of failure lies always close to 
the sun land of success. Their provinces are curi- 
ously related. They interpenetrate each other. 
We cross the borderland unconsciously and do 
not discern the lines of separation. We are not 
challenged by any sentinels. We are only drawn 
insensibly to our own point of attraction for the 
passing hour by the magnetic currents into which 
we have allowed ourselves to drift. There is noth- 
ing more dangerous than depression and discour- 
agement. Their tides and currents float us always 
to disaster. When we permit the winds to blow 
from a new quarter we find the clouds are quickly 
scattered. We easily sail away from the dark 
shores of foreboding and fear to lands of beauty 
and luxuriance. 

The difference is as great as if we had exchanged 
the Arctic seas of the North for the aromatic forests 
of the South. 

There is as much reality in our thought lati- 
tudes as in geographical limits. 



32 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

When we have perceived this truth we do 
not sit down shivering by the wayside to wait 
for the clouds to scatter. We waste no time in 
sorrowing over shattered ideals, but we boldly 
enter a new thought land. What we have failed 
to discover in one country of our wanderings we 
diligently seek in another, until we find our largest 
hopes and longings satisfied. It is our spiritual 
geography that has been at fault. What we have 
desired does exist. We shall discover it when we 
put aside the pettiness of personal caprice and 
search with the devotion of King Arthur's knights 
in their quest of the Holy Grail. 

We can best correct the imperfections in our- 
selves and others by constantly emphasizing ideals 
instead of punishing faults. We must hold stead- 
fastly to our confidence in better things rather than 
weaken ourselves with thoughts of failure. 

Every life is typified in the history of the race. 

The individual passes through his barbaric and 
feudal ages and comes through " renaissance " to 
higher conditions, until the golden age is reached 
at last in his soul's development. 

It has been said that mortal life is like a term 
at school ; yet in comparison with the greater life 
of which it is a part, it can be only as a single hour 
in the class-room. It is but an incident in the 
existence of the immortal ego and can hardly reach 
the dignity of an event. Do we not greatly exag- 



CONFIDENCE. 33 

gerate its value and significance? Do we not 
needlessly exercise ourselves upon the sensations 
of the hour? Are they really of any greater con- 
sequence than the nursery games of children, of 
which in later life they have no recollection ? Why 
should we persist in breaking our hearts over experi- 
ences which are so rapidly fading out of our horizon 
even while we grieve? Nothing in mortal life can 
possibly arrive at the importance of real tragedy. 

The deepest of our sufferings are only tracings 
in the sands of the seashore, to be erased by the 
next wave of time. 

In this larger view of life we find all anguish 
melt away. The tense conditions of our mind 
which have arisen from our ignorant and childish 
conceptions pass. We find peace in the " Everlast- 
ing Arms" which are enfolding us, and from which 
we can never fall away. 

The birds are always singing in our heavens, 
the light is always shining, help is always near, 
and our mountains are always full of invisible hosts 
sent for our deliverance ; yet how often we are deaf 
to the melodies and blind to the brightness and 
power because our fears have closed the avenues 
of spiritual perception ! We sit sad and comfort- 
less, walled in by our grief, while to every word 
of consolation we but shake our heads and cry, 
" Never was sorrow like my sorrow." 

It is as important to relax our minds as it is to 



34 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

concentrate them. Relaxation and concentration 
are opposite poles of the same mental currents. 
It is desirable that we understand and alternate 
these conditions wisely, else we shall be always 
either tense or scattered. Concentration is true 
quietness rather than intensity. 

On the stage of human action we are often 
obliged to wait our call between the parts assigned 
to us. Let us learn to wait patiently and not rush 
upon the boards before our time, else we will unfit 
ourselves through our impatience for the playing 
of our proper part in the drama. We cannot miss 
our cue if we desire only to fulfil our opportunities. 
We should not act until the hour of action compels. 
We should not speak until the utterance is neces- 
sary. In the time of action we will find the open 
way, and in the hour of speech there will be no 
lack of words. 

If we will learn to live without haste we will 
learn to live without our present urgent need of rest. 

Our weariness comes from ignorance of our 
powers. We fear their exhaustion from mental 
and perhaps unconscious protest against the 
demands of our occupations. We hold the ex- 
pectation of reaction and fatigue. Thus our 
weariness results from mental friction of some 
sort rather than excessive activity. All haste im- 
plies anxiety and fear. Hurry is only worry under 
another name. It is often indulged habitually by 



CONFIDENCE. 



35 



those who would not acknowledge themselves to 
be anxious. 

The minutes saved by hurry are as useless as 
the pennies saved by parsimony. 

Economies of time and money do not feed a 
full-grown soul. 

Freedom expresses always and everywhere a 
sense of ever-present power to command all 
things. Success results from confident demand 
upon ourselves. We fail because our purposes 
are easily broken off. 

When purpose and action are in harmony, they 
are like the united movement of the wind and tide. 

A truly concentrated life promptly rejects every 
thought of past or future that would disturb its 
confidence in the present hour. 

It accepts nothing that will not feed its power. 

When we have planted a wheat-field or an 
orchard, and a blight destroys the ripening grain 
or a frost kills the fruit, our confidence in nature 
is not weakened, though our labor has ended 
fruitlessly. We plant again and again in confident 
expectation of the harvest. But when we fail in 
our earliest efforts to demonstrate the power of 
thought, and disease still clings to us, or the 
opulence we have sought is still delayed, we are 
very apt to heed our doubts and yield to our 
despair. Yet the fruit of thought is as well assured 
as that of the fields. 



36 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Health and prosperity result from our awaken- 
ing to consciousness of spiritual power. Courage 
is developed by necessity of action. When life is 
comfortable we easily lose momentum. Arrested 
motion transmutes energy into heat. 

Inflammation, fever, and congestion are the 
natural results of interrupted circulation in thought 
life. 

As we become aroused to the higher vibrations 
of spirit we become indifferent to the lower vibra- 
tions of matter, knowing we can control them. 

Every man is the Supreme Being of his own 
life. No good or evil can come to him except as 
he makes it possible. 

Distrust of himself is only another form of van- 
ity — a fear lest he should not fulfil his personal 
expectation. It forgets the infinite power upon 
which he can draw at will. It is as much a fault 
to fear a seeming weakness in ourselves as actually 
to manifest it outwardly. 

It sometimes happens that the only debt we can 
pay on demand is what is called the " debt of 
nature," and so the weak man dies through an 
exaggerated consciousness of weakness. He fails 
to perceive the strength that he embodies, which 
would be sufficient if properly directed to extri- 
cate him from all his troubles. 

Our fears are always premature and lead us to 
confusion. 



CONFIDENCE. 37 

Resurrection is the awakening of force. It is 
not through dropping our material bodies, but by 
obtaining true possession and control of them that 
we can ever realize its meaning. 

When we have attained to spiritual realization 
our bank bills will be to us of no more value or 
significance than bits of paper. Deeds and stock 
certificates will be as worthless as old rags. 

Opulence within will certainly express itself in 
opulence without. Spiritual power is creative and 
dominates all things. It is not dependent upon 
strongboxes filled with fanciful " securities." When 
once it has been recognized and put in motion it 
is always the master and never the slave of its 
material possessions. 

The inexhaustible energies of nature are at 
our service when we have learned to make a 
confident demand upon them. We do not need 
so much to study the conservation of our forces 
and resources as the power we possess of prompt 
renewal. Every so-called " law " in science 
is manifested under prescribed conditions. If 
the conditions are changed there is a different 
result in action, and one law is transcended by 
another. 

He who governs the conditions is the lawmaker. 
Thus every man becomes a law unto himself. 
The science of metaphysics is a study of adjust- 
ment. It is an application of common sense to 






38 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

practical affairs, with confidence that we can regu- 
late our mental attitude toward persons and events. 
There is in it no element of mystery. It does not 
require anything but the simplest intellectual effort 
upon natural lines. 

Pessimism is like a derelict wreck at sea. It 
drifts without a helmsman, at the mercy of every 
wind and tide. Submerged below the water line, 
it is a menace to every brave mariner who spreads 
his sails to the breeze, and hangs his signal lights 
aloft. It is an obstruction to navigation and a 
danger to every craft that floats in the same sea. 
It rolls in the trough of the ocean a water-logged 
and lifeless thing against which all seamen must 
be warned. 

We are often so bewildered by false theories on 
one hand and false practices on the other that our 
lives are complicated and ensnared. But if we 
are polarized in purpose we will be balanced for 
action. 

The magnetic needle does not struggle to reach 
the north. 

It is so well adjusted that the electric currents 
of the earth and air in their steady flow will swing 
it always toward the pole. When it vacillates 
through any temporary distraction they will bring 
it surely and speedily into line again with their per- 
sistent forces. There is no danger that it will mis- 
take the points of the compass. Upon the stability 



CONFIDENCE. 39 

of this magnetic law we venture fearlessly with our 
fleets and navies into unknown waters. May we 
not have the same confidence in the soul's per- 
ceptions? 

Why is our guiding principle so often deflected 
in life's voyage? Every wrong thought tends 
to depolarize it. Every hour of indulgence in 
false purpose or emotion turns it from its lode- 
star. Impatience and selfishness of every kind 
obstruct the equable flow of spiritual currents 
through the individual life. 

Every doubt and fear operates to scatter them. 

Absolute confidence in the eternal wisdom, 
love, and power of life is necessary to clear seeing 
and right doing. 

We are impatient at every difficulty and turn 
the highest stimulus of life into an occasion for 
self-pity and discouragement. We treat adver- 
sity as an enemy when it is our truest friend. It 
is a demonstration of the accurate operation 
of the laws of cause and consequence. If we 
analyze intelligently we will always find a rare 
gem of truth imbedded in our stoniest ex- 
periences. 

If we do not quickly agree with our adversity 
it casts us into the prison of doubt, from which 
we never emerge till we have paid the uttermost 
farthing. Nor could the soul wish us to go free 
till we had learned to rightly interpret the law 



40 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

from which we suffered. Pain is persistent energy. 
It is the manifestation of life. 

All our suffering comes from battles with our- 
selves. After we have been sufficiently bruised 
and beaten by the conditions we have attracted, 
we begin to understand the needlessness of strife. 

When we are willing to feed upon the husks of 
our emotions and sensations we must not complain 
of the pangs of starvation. 

True life deals with causes rather than effects. 
It does not concern itself with shadows. It is not 
interested in appearances, nor does it question how 
it looks to the outsider. It desires only right 
results. It recognizes that the shadow is illusive 
and misleading, and employs itself in the mould- 
ing of the substance that throws the shadow. It 
does not dwell on negative conditions, but on posi- 
tive forces. In our reaction from the old insist- 
ence upon " doing" we emphasize the value of the 
silence in which we study being. But there are 
perils in the calm as well as in the storm. We 
must be careful that we do not lose our steerage 
way. No philosophy can be really good which 
leads to helplessness and inactivity. 

The largest life expresses itself in largest action. 
Spiritual wisdom improves its purpose and method 
without reducing its activities. Real growth never 
results in indolence. 

Let us roll the drum and sound the bugle note 



CONFIDENCE. 4 1 

as loud and clear as possible. But the cheer of 
the living hero daring all things in the charge 
is more inspiring than any sound of drum or 
bugle. Is it not better to march shoulder to 
shoulder in the column and keep step to the 
grand music of life that leads us forward than to 
be stragglers and grumblers in the rear? Is it not 
better to embody the faith that we profess and 
manifest it in our daily living than to show our 
ingenuity in criticism and our eloquence in com- 
plaints. 

We think, perhaps, that we love music, and find 
mathematics distasteful. We respond readily to 
sentimental appeals, but are reluctant to meet the 
homely duties that demand our daily care. In 
reality music and mathematics are but different 
expressions of the same law. 

Were it not for the accurate variation in the 
vibrations of notes and fixed counts in the rests 
musical chords would be impossible. Mathematics 
is a spiritual science — music is its rhythmic 
expression appealing to the emotional nature as 
Euclid's propositions appeal to the reason. Each 
is reducible to the terms of the other as sound 
and color, differentiated only by the number of 
their vibrations through which they reach the 
different senses in their different development. 

It is difficult to say which is the greater marvel 
to the human mind, the diversity, or unity of life. 



42 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

The science of thought is the music of life's 
mathematical problems. It is the fresh grouping 
of the notes and rests, enabling us to strike new 
chords. 

The question of harmony or discord in any event 
concerning us is governed wholly by our point 
of view. Art and science are dependent upon 
careful measurements as well as on the inspiration 
of genius. 

The simplest task, the smallest duty which falls 
to us, are equally important as the heroic deed. 
The plainest speech and action are sometimes the 
most essentially heroic. In life's drama the play 
that goes on behind the scenes is often more beau- 
tiful than that performed before the footlights to 
the music of the orchestra and the applause of an 
admiring public. 

If we cannot immediately provide for those we 
love all that we would wish in material advantages 
we can at least fulfil their higher good by holding 
them in the kingdom of mind in. which we rule in 
the thought of opulence and health and right- 
eousness. Such thoughts bring their fruit as well 
as the labor of the hands. We need not drag 
our dear ones down with us into dungeons of 
fear. Fear results from unaccustomed situa- 
tions, and the failure to apply our principles with 
confidence that they are sufficient to solve all 
problems. 



CONFIDENCE. 43 

We can no longer indulge our apprehensions 
when we have come to understanding. 

We are always under the protection of the uni- 
versal law. 

It transmutes every experience into good, and 
our most painful hours " may be turned to beauti- 
ful results." We cannot gauge life rightly by our 
sensations of comfort and discomfort, except to 
understand that all discomfort reveals our needs. 
If the hand or foot were to concentrate its sensi- 
bilities upon itself with fear that it were too remote 
from the heart or head to share in their energies 
and watchful care the circulation of the arterial 
system would be immediately disturbed. 

We know that any pain in hand or foot is in- 
stantly telegraphed to the brain, and the great 
central organ of the heart responds without delay 
to every unusual demand. 

Can we not have equal confidence in the great 
heart and head of Being — the principle that we 
call God? 

It is more difficult to fall than to stand, for all the 
laws of gravitation and mechanics combine to hold 
us on our feet. There is an intelligent power be- 
hind every one that is more interested in his pres- 
ervation than he is himself, because it has a better 
understanding of his value and a purpose in ex- 
pressing its own life through his. 

Life continually seeks expression, and places a 
high value upon every opportunity. 



44 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

If we could once realize the wisdom of the spirit 
that guides us and the force which protects us we 
could never again harbor a fear. All our anxie- 
ties are trivial in view of the infinite provision for 
our needs. 

It is at the point at which we seem to stand 
alone in our trouble, and darkness shuts down 
about us, that the real test comes. We are face to 
face with the question, " Does law govern in my 
life or am I left to chance ? Is the power I have 
thought supreme indifferent or helpless in this hour 
of pressing need ? Shall I listen to the voice of 
the senses and curse God and die?" 

Yet how quickly could all our difficulties be 
relieved from the inexhaustible resources of an 
infinite mind ! How promptly could our vitality 
be quickened by the creative power we call life ! 

How very small are our pecuniary wants in 
comparison with the boundless wealth about us ! 
How easily could our heart hunger be satisfied 
with some small fragments from the feast of 
Love ! 

But the misgivings linger — fears of disease, of 
poverty, of loneliness. The soul refuses to feed 
upon crusts and will not be satisfied with anything 
partial and incomplete. So it is shut out from 
everything but the springs within itself, and at 
length in our extremity we dig for these hidden 
waters. 



CONFIDENCE. 45 

It is in our night of agony in the garden that our 
angels appear. They have never been absent from 
our side, but sorrow rends the veil from our eyes 
and discloses the presence of our celestial helpers. 

We find our dangers have been exaggerated 
because we were unconscious of our unseen allies. 
All our fears have vanished with the night. Joy 
and confidence have come with the dawn. 

There is no doubt that, sooner or later, every one 
can accomplish his desires if he will hold to them 
with an unvarying and persistent confidence. But 
as we move forward we discover better things than 
those we sought. We are like mountain travellers 
discerning always higher peaks beyond the eleva- 
tions they have reached, and which could not be 
seen from the lower levels. 

We come but slowly to the recognition of our 
opportunities. 

The largest attainments are not possible while 
we paralyze ourselves with doubt of our abilities. 
" I can do all things " is the voice of the higher 
consciousness. 

Incredulity is not the sign of a superior intelli- 
gence. Faith is scientific and not superstitious. 
It is the result of large experience and knowledge. 
Its scope rightly measures the intelligence of its 
possessor. 

A pessimistic and sceptical tone is the expres- 
sion of a narrow mind and limited experience. 



46 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Atheism is a disease — a superstition. The 
atheist is a bigot of the crudest type. He is usu- 
ally a fanatic of the violent order. Fanaticism 
grows always upon thin soil. 

It is the ignorant mind that is suspicious. The 
possibilities of life are far beyond the present range 
of our discoveries, and every step of progress opens 
a grander horizon. 

When the young bird first leaves its nest it can 
only cling to the bough on which the nest is built. 
It begins to stretch its wings, but has not learned 
its power to master the force of gravitation. A little 
later and the nest and bough are left behind. The 
bird has flown beyond the clouds. It has acquired 
the science of motion and command of its wings. 
It has gained freedom through its fearlessness. 

When we have learned that we can do a thing, 
not because it is simple and easy in itself, but 
because we are strong enough to do it, the action 
is a delight and not an effort. 

When we are confident of victory the home 
stretch is a pleasant one, and the winning post an 
easy goal. 

We sometimes fancy we would like to get done 
with life. 

Such moments of weariness and weakness come 
at times to most of us. Yet for every human life 
that passes out of the objective phase, there are 
thousands seeking eagerly to enter, knowing as 



CONFIDENCE. 47 

they do that the mortal has a rare and privileged 
opportunity of gaining that which is not otherwise 
attainable. 

If we could only see our daily trials as they will 
appear to us a little farther on the road, we would 
greet them with a buoyant and boisterous welcome 
instead of cowering and groaning with alarm. 

Does trouble challenge us to walk with it a 
mile? Fearlessly let us go with it twain. 

Does it rudely snatch away our cloak? Let us 
offer it our coat also. We will never meet in life 
a trial that can halt us on the highway like a 
robber and compel us to throw up our hands 
unless we choose to ignore our power and yield to 
a force that, in the nature of things, must always 
be inferior to ourselves. 

We are not dying of starvation but of over- 
feeding. Life is an embarrassment of riches. 
Our illnesses show that we have not been denied, 
but allowed too much indulgence of our follies. 
We have not selected our food wisely. We do 
not need to suffer from impoverishment in any 
direction if we are ready to choose that which 
ministers to. our growth. 

Life is not so cruel as to give us mouths we 
cannot feed or passions we cannot control. Nor 
does it develop aspirations that we cannot satisfy. 
Increasing strength of appetite develops corre- 
sponding power of government. 



48 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Hunger quickens our perceptions and leads us 
to nature's storehouses. Aspiration furnishes us 
pinions upon which we wing our way to paradise. 

Every ideal can be made practical as soon it 
is distinctly defined, for the power to image and 
to execute are one and the same thing. 

There is no such thing as a false hope related 
to the individual himself. Our hope may be im- 
perfect, but when we have developed it into an 
intelligent purpose it has already entered upon ful- 
filment. We can sometimes judge of the character 
and value of the work awaiting us by the severity 
of the experiences we have passed in preparation 
for it. Are we suffering to-day? It is that we may 
have the wisdom needful for some suffering one 
whom we may help to-morrow. 

After the baptism of sorrow comes the baptism 
of consolation. We must learn to let go of the 
good things in order to arrive at better things, as 
the tree lets go its buds that they may ripen into 
blossoms, and lets go the blossoms that the fruit 
may come. 

Instead of indulging the thought " this is very 
trying," we should remind ourselves " this is my 
test and I am glad to prove my strength or dis- 
cover my weakness." We need to detach our- 
selves from any difficult situation — to look at it 
apart from personal considerations — to stand out- 
side ourselves and view the question quite dis- 



CONFIDENCE. 49 

passionately, as though it concerned another and 
were a matter of indifference to us, to put aside 
the present suffering with the assurance that there 
is balm in Gilead and the pain will quickly pass. 

Our best work is often struck out in the white 
heat of suffering, and there comes a time when 
the soul understands that its choicest fruit is 
ripened on the tree of knowledge which grows in 
the garden of sorrow. 



Experience deals us just the blows we need to 
teach us equilibrium. 



50 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



The life of every day would be a pleasure if we 
would permit ourselves to thoroughly enjoy the 
work in hand. 



CONFIDENCE. 5 1 



Disease and misfortune result from habits of 
mind. 

We cannot have a sickly body or environment 
without a sickly thought behind it. 

Our mental attitude to-day determines our 
success to-morrow. 



52 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



Specific gravity governs in our affairs as truly as 
in material science. 

It carries us promptly to the plane to which our 
confident or anxious thoughts relate us. 

The force we waste upon our fears is all that 
would be necessary for the achievement of our 
purpose. 



TOILING IN ROWING. 53 

III. 

TOILING IN ROWING. 

And he saw them toiling in rowing, for the wind was con- 
trary unto them. — Mark 6, 48. 

WHAT hard work we make of living ! How we 
labor at the oar in our efforts to be practical and 
to avoid the charges of idealism and credulity ! 

In the twilight of Galilee the fishermen were 
toiling when Jesus came to them walking upon the 
waters. No toiling in rowing for him — for even 
the winds and waves obeyed him — this superb 
idealist. Why should not such a man sleep in 
the midst of the storm, knowing he could walk 
upon the waters ! Yet the only difference between 
the disciple and the Master was in the larger rec- 
ognition of the force which was possessed by both. 
It was latent in the one and active in the other. 

It is easy for us to imagine that we must furnish 
the motive power of life. 

We are slow to realize that while it is for us to 
decide in what direction we shall move, it is the 
universal energy that drives us forward. 

The winds and waters never fail to serve us when 
we recognize ourselves as rulers. There is no gale 
that can blow hard enough to drive us off our 
course. 



54 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

There are no billows high enough to wreck or 
drown us. 

All seas are buoyant to the undaunted soul. 

To destroy the sense of fear, we need to culti- 
vate the sense of mastery. Self-control is our first 
lesson, and in learning this we acquire the power 
to put all things under our feet. Absolute domin- 
ion is the destiny of man. 

The path is found in the humblest walks — the 
most common occupations of our human life. 
Nothing can keep us from it when the soul has 
made its. choice. Our daily trials are our prepara- 
tion, and these are often as severe as the beds of 
burning coals the Eastern aspirant is compelled to 
tread before he is accepted as a novitiate in mystic 
orders. 

The idealist is not usually a man of affairs. He 
is apt to be a very faulty mathematician. Never- 
theless the real purpose of life is to measure 
business by the golden rule — to manifest in all 
our dealings with each other a love that is not 
foolish, and an enlightened selfishness not unlov- 
ing — to find a way in which the devil shall not 
take the hindmost, nor each man stand for him- 
self alone. 

Life is a constructive force ; it does not wish 
to feed upon us. There is no malignant fate pur- 
suing us ; there is no power in the universe which 
dooms us to disaster and compels defeat. 



TOILING IN ROWING. 55 

Every energy of life is pledged to the ultimate 
success of every individual, to the accomplishment 
of his purposes, wise or foolish, if he has learned 
the value of decision, of persistence, and of con- 
centrated will. The heat of the blow-pipe will 
quickly melt the hardest substance upon which it 
is steadily focussed. The lenses of the telescope 
serve only for the concentration of the rays of 
light and bring into our field of vision stars from 
which we are separated by inconceivable distances. 

When we chain the wheels of our chariots they 
drag heavily. 

With doubts and fears we dissipate our energies 
and clip the wings of Spirit. 

If we listen with a mournful mind life seems to 
us a wail of sorrow. We do not hear the swell- 
ing undertone of love. When we are done with 
our complaints all voices become melodious. 

Truth does not require emphasis. We state a 
mathematical proposition quietly. 

We do not find gesture necessary in teaching 
history or reciting facts of which we have no doubt. 

We are indifferent to all scepticism regarding 
our financial credit when we know it to be sound. 
Why should we ever be disturbed because our 
friends do not agree with our philosophies? 

" He who knows does not talk; 
He who talks does not know." 



56 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

If in the human chorus any voice sings out of 
tune it is all the more necessary that we should 
keep to the score. 

When we are distressed at the discords of those 
who are dear to us let us know that in the silence 
we can reach the higher self even while the per- 
sonal is resentful and estranged. 

The castle may be unapproachable, with moated 
walls and drawbridge raised, but a little bird can 
enter at its highest turret window, flying across the 
moat and above the closed portcullis. So can a 
loving thought wing itself where no word would be 
admitted, and where the lower nature has been 
barricaded by selfishness and prejudice. 

All work of spiritual enlightenment is done 
upon the higher planes of the superconscious self. 
There is no stronghold tenable against the silent 
influence of thought. Spirit is never limited by 
time or circumstance. 

When we are tried by those we love we can 
learn the ministry of angels and be to them like 
an arisen spirit which in its larger vision should 
suffer no disturbance of grief or doubt. 

It sees beyond the mortal day and turns 
from that which is temporary to that which is 
eternal. 

It pierces the shadows of the night with spiritual 
vision and sees the dawning light. It has more 
than hope : it has the certainty of knowledge. 



TOILING IV ROWING. 57 

It waits without impatience for the hour when 
the mortal shall recognize its higher self and be- 
come obedient to its voice. The soul may be 
bewildered in the sensual life, but it can never 
be really enslaved. It may be mired in the low- 
lands, but it is only travelling its spiral of experi- 
ence and will some day come to higher grounds. 
Its wings will not be always folded. 

" Though ye have lain among the pots, yet shall 
ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver 
and her feathers with yellow gold." 

All life is gospel. The air is full of messages of 
good. 

Humanity needs only to be instructed to re- 
ceive and give. 

The secrets of existence are not to be found by- 
laborious seeking, but by willingness to learn and 
readiness to apply them. 

Life opens unto all at every moment the high- 
est good we can appropriate. 

The soul always knows the road to truth when 
it is ready to set out upon its journey, but we 
must first clear up our heavy atmospheres laden 
with resentment and depression. 

If in places the path seems steep we know it is 
leading more directly to the summit. 

When our self-contention ceases we find our- 
selves at peace with all the world. It is only then 
that we can trust our judgment in the affairs of 



58 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

life. When thought is purified it draws to itseh 
all things and persons necessary to the solution of 
its problems. 

Peace is not a stagnant pool : it is a deep-flow- 
ing river. 

Life always vindicates its equities without our 
anxious care. Our interference is often an imper- 
tinence. Events are not hastened to satisfy our 
impatience. Justice is a universal element. It 
always includes mercy, even when we see only 
the action of what appears to be inexorable fate. 
The vexatious questions of to-day can be better 
understood if we will take them out of their pres- 
ent setting of time and circumstance and view 
them from an impersonal standpoint. They will 
look very different against a background of fifty 
years. Time will dwarf them to their true propor- 
tions. A change of venue will assist us to more 
just and impartial conclusions and divest them of 
the false lights thrown upon them by vexation and 
annoyance. 

We cannot handle malarial fever to advantage 
in the swamps in which it was contracted. If we 
remove the patient to higher ground where he can 
have pure air and water the crisis is safely met, 
and convalescence is assured. If we raise our 
personal and political contentions out of the 
swamps of feeling in which they have been devel- 
oped, we will often be surprised to find the ease 



TOILING IN ROWING. 59 

with which the difficulties solve themselves. Our 
relations are needlessly complicated by selfish- 
ness and obstinacy. If we will divest ourselves 
of petty pride we will perceive more clearly the 
responsibilities involved and find a quick adjust- 
ment practical. 

When one's head is under water he cannot hear 
what is spoken in the air. These two elements of 
different density have different vibrations. Spirit- 
ual utterances cannot reach the ears of those who 
live wholly in the sensual life. They cannot per- 
ceive vibrations of the spiritual ether. Revelation 
is an opening of our inner vision rather than an 
addition to our knowledge from without. It is only 
when the plant has unfolded in the air and sunlight 
that its beautiful mysteries of form and color stand 
revealed. One knows but little of the true life of 
the body until he has begun to learn the secrets 
of the soul. 

When an athlete desires to lift a heavy weight 
he finds that he needs something more than muscle 
and confidence in its power. He must learn to 
apply the muscle with intelligence, to get the right 
grip upon the object he wishes to raise. The 
wrestler cannot throw his opponent until he has 
grappled him in the right place ; he sometimes gets 
this hold by yielding and letting go. 

In the difficulties which present themselves to 
every one it is of the greatest value that we should 



60 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

learn the lesson of adjustment. When we have 
got the right grip we can readily lift any weight 
that is ours to lift. We can throw any difficulty 
with which we have to wrestle. It is, however, 
important that we should not mistake our antago- 
nist and waste our strength upon questions that do 
not belong to us to settle, or weights we need not 
raise to-day. All our work should be approached 
with the glad confidence of the sturdy athlete. 

We will have no occasion to complain of use- 
lessness and weakness if we do not scatter in trivial 
things the powers that are abundantly sufficient for 
any legitimate demands. The most powerful elec- 
tric current if not carefully insulated will be dis- 
persed by the induction of neighboring wires and 
fail of the work for which it was intended. 

The clouds which gather in our heavens are 
often created by our own ingenious imagination, 
thickened and obscured by a doubtful mind. We 
think it is trouble that weakens and exhausts us, 
and makes us grow gray and old. If this be 
true, it is because we have not understood trouble 
and used it wisely. What we call trouble is really 
a stimulant and rejuvenator. It is the apparatus 
in life's gymnasium which serves to develop skill 
and muscle, and burns up tissues which may 
be perpetually renewed. It is a fundamental 
rule of physical culture that exercise should be 
continued till the muscles ache and cry for rest. 



TOILING IN ROWING. 6 1 

The work should be increased as rapidly as new 
strength will permit. We are too easily cowed by 
suffering, and quick to whine at all discomforts. 
But the measure of our difficulties is the gauge of 
our necessities, and we should never turn away 
from discipline with rueful faces. 

It is not by any means the people who have had 
the greatest trouble that grow old the fastest. 
If trouble serves to arouse the higher powers of 
the soul it results in a sense of independence 
and mastery which brings strength and youth. 

We should find every problem welcome and 
every fresh experience proportioned to the power 
gained by former difficulties. The divine energy 
that we embody will not let us rest in inactivity 
and stagnation. We must climb to every throne 
that we would occupy as we grow continually to 
larger recognition of our right to govern. We 
dig in many a field for the pearl of great price. 
The digging should bring us pleasure and profit 
quite as much as that we get from contemplation 
of the pearl itself. Life will not set us any task 
beyond our strength, nor will it ever demand of 
us bricks without straw. 

We find no reason for unhappiness when we dis- 
miss our apprehensions. We are too often over- 
confident in expectation of disaster. We are too 
sanguine of defeat. We overestimate our incapac- 
ity. We are too sure of failure. 



62 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

When we hear suggestions of some pleasing 
possibility we think it " too good to be true." 
When disappointment comes to us it is " just what 
we might have expected." 

Troubles are friendly tramps. We need not 
deal angrily with them and set the dogs on them, 
for if we treat them kindly they will show us many 
things we need to know, and cheerfully go on their 
way leaving blessings and not curses behind them. 

Sooner or later life will give us all we want, and 
we will find severer lessons in satiety than in 
poverty. 

Every truth that we encounter adds to our un- 
happiness until it has been accepted and embodied 
in our life. 

A fruitful cause of dissatisfaction and unrest is 
an abnormal desire to please others. This often 
springs from personal and selfish motives unsus- 
pected by the sufferer. He strives in vain to gain 
the satisfaction of recognized service and is met 
by coldness and indifference. If such an one would 
give up his subserviency, abandon his unwelcome 
efforts, and train himself to the indifference from 
which he suffers he would soon get satisfactory 
results. 

We need to guard ourselves even in loving min- 
istry against the sacrifice of individuality. It is 
indispensable to a true life to think from its own 
centres. It is not always wise to force ourselves 



TOILING IN ROWING. 63 

to look at matters from the standpoint of another. 
We sometimes sacrifice our judgment to affection. 
This can bring no good to ourselves or others. As 
one develops individuality he is very sure to be 
misunderstood by his domestic circle. 

Strong individuality is like a statue carved in 
stone which shows fine outlines and proportions on 
its pedestal, but looks extremely coarse when 
placed upon the ground. We need the softening 
effects of time and distance to enable us to judge 
correctly of a rugged human character. Its lines 
do not seem delicate when closely viewed, but a 
greater refinement would probably weaken it for 
its peculiar work. 

The pedestal of some special occasion raises it 
beyond our criticism and brings out, in grand re- 
lief, strong points that were, perhaps, offensive to 
us within narrower limits. 

True individuality is never selfish. When we 
understand our real relations to the universe of 
which we are a part, we open ourselves fearlessly 
upon all sides. Our desire is to yield in matters 
of mere preference. We know that giving is as 
necessary as getting in maintaining perfect circu- 
lation. Selfishness is congestive. It contracts 
and shrivels all the nature ; but much yielding 
and giving is, in reality, more selfish than with- 
holding and denying, and demands less force of 
character. 



64 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Eagerness in getting health or pleasure some- 
times shuts out the good that is crowding con- 
stantly upon us. We are often as selfish in the 
indulgence of another's eagerness as in our own. 
Nature is a wonderfully careful mother, and makes 
the way of the transgressor hard. It is no kindness 
to try to make it easy. If one wastes his fortune 
recklessly he gains in exchange the wisdom of ex- 
perience, which is perhaps worth more than what 
has been flung away. 

Nature relieves the fevered senses of the profli- 
gate with a dash of the cold water of adversity, and 
arouses him from his intoxication and bewilderment. 

Then comes the headache of remorse — the 
moan of disappointment, the idle question " Is life 
worth living? "—which springs only from unhap- 
piness. Life means far more than the successful 
conduct of our petty personal affairs or maintenance 
of a conventional respectability. 

Our higher self has other aims for us than find- 
ing an ageeeable climate and an indolent existence. 
It arouses us with the sharp strokes of the alarm 
clock of some sudden discomfort. It compels us 
to go out into the cold and darkness of misfor- 
tune or disease and so move on to new activi- 
ties. Our days are filled with the sense of failure, 
and in the night vexation and regret surge in upon 
us like chilling winter tides. We feel the darkness 
overpowering. A bottomless pit yawns beneath 



TOILING IN ROWING. 6$ 

us. All remembrance of past joys is swallowed up 
in a midnight horror, and we hear only the echo of 
the words in our minds' corridors " He descended 
into hell." Heaven seems forever inaccessible. 

Truly the shadows of the valley of humiliation 
are deeper and blacker than those of the valley of 
death. But the experience of these dark places 
seems necessary to us all. 

Much of our dissatisfaction in life is due to the 
fact that we are not good judges of the fruit that 
grows on the tree in the midst of the garden — the 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We do 
not recognize the times of ripeness. We are mis- 
led by appearances and easily mistake the day of 
growing for the day of gathering. 

We are premature in our expectations and feel 
vexed and mortified to find only leaves where we 
have looked for fruit — not knowing that " the 
time of fruit is not yet." It is idle to fret at 
immaturity either in ourselves or others. Ages 
are required to perfect the animal man, and ages 
more to make him master of the universe. We 
do not realize how usefully we are related to the 
environment in which we find ourselves. If it be 
distasteful we can see in it no good. We do not 
understand how much we need the things that 
come to us, and which often are reluctantly re- 
ceived. We sigh for solitude while getting our 
best stimulus from those about us. 



66 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Every human being radiates magnetic and elec- 
tric currents, and receives from others similar 
radiations of nervous energy. Society provides 
us with something more than opportunities of 
pleasant conversation. It relieves us of surplus 
force which might react uncomfortably upon our- 
selves. It restores to us the subtle elements we 
most require. We are instinctively drawn to the 
surroundings we need, and which enable nature to 
maintain in us her equilibrium. 

Plants feed on the carbonic oxide thrown off by 
human lungs. They purify the atmosphere for 
the further use of man, while at the same time 
emitting fragrance which is soothing and delightful. 
Each thus ministers to the other. This principle 
pervades all life, and manifests itself in marvellous 
ways to students of natural science. 

When we come to a closer analysis of what we call 
vibration we shall find that everything has a more 
extended scale than we now realize. 

Nature has different vibratory rates which will 
appeal to all the senses when our soul perceptions 
are more fully awakened. 

We now see color and hear sound. Other things 
we taste, smell, or touch without hearing and often 
without seeing them. 

If our senses were perfected they would all be 
cognizant of everything in the objective life. 

We would then perceive not only with one or 



TOILING IN ROWING. 6j 

two or three of the five senses while the others 
were inactive. We would discover in everything 
some quality that touched a responsive chord in 
each. We would easily distinguish the movements 
of colors and sound-waves, taste their flavors and 
sense their touch. We would hear the harmonies 
of the flower-beds, the chantings of the ferns and 
forests. We would see the exquisite tints of musi- 
cal chords, and at the same time enjoy their deli- 
cate odors. We would understand the variations 
of individual character from the symphonies of 
color radiated by the thought life. Laboratory 
experiments sometimes disclose rare dyes and 
fragrance w T here we had not supposed them to 
exist. A change of temperature in the crucible 
will develop strange forms and properties. The 
more advanced unfoldment of humanity must 
doubtless open new avenues of sensation. The 
spirit of man is all-seeing, all-hearing, all-per- 
ceiving; its intelligence is far beyond the present 
capacity of the senses to express. 

These are imperfect avenues or points of contact 
between the material and astral realms, in both of 
which man functions. 

Complete consciousness of both these planes, 
and intelligent direction of the will in all of his 
activities, is man's great problem on this planet. 

Stand with me on an October day upon some 
high peak of the Rocky Mountain range. We 



68 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

are in the midst of one of Nature's grandest 
amphitheatres. Encircling us are mountain-tops 
that are crowned with eternal snows. 

Below us lies the timber line marked with dark 
forests of pine, spruce, and cypress. Farther down 
the mountain-side are groves of beech and aspen 
brilliant with the glory of the burning bush, while 
at a lower level are green meadows with the silvery 
threads of mountain streams woven in and out 
between the lines of hills. 

Above this panorama hangs a canopy of deep 
blue sky mottled here and there with the cumulus 
clouds and fleecy drifts of an autumn afternoon. 

A little later we may see this spectacle, illumi- 
nated by a harvest moon throwing its mysterious 
light over the snow crystals, forests, and meadows. 

We call to mind the strains of the old prophets : 

"Then shall the trees of the wood sing out." 

"The valleys shout; they also sing." 

" When the morning stars sang together and all 
the sons of God shouted for joy." 

If our ears were truly open now what glorious 
anthems we might hear ! What a marvellous 
diapason ranging from the snow-top of the moun- 
tain to the herbage of the valley ! Then would life 
appear indeed to us a song of power and gladness. 

If we wish to train our voices to sing true we 
must not listen so much to discords. 

We must drop our habits of criticism. We 



TOILING IN ROWING. 6$ 

must look for the sweet things in life and not the 
sour. We must gather flowers instead of nettles. 

When one lives a grand, strong life we are not 
greatly disturbed that he is uninformed in any 
special field of knowledge, or even wholly illiterate 
and ignorant. His character in itself is a bene- 
diction which soothes, instructs, and stimulates us 
through the power of love. 

And when another is endowed with all that 
makes a teacher great, except the personal demon- 
stration of the truth he teaches, shall we not forget 
his personality and value that of which he is the 
voice? We learn from one the proposition of a 
principle, and in another we see the demonstration. 
We cannot well dispense with either, though per- 
haps we often find them separated. The fact that 
one proclaims a truth shows some appreciation of 
high standards, even though the teacher himself, 
limps painfully in his effort to follow them. 

Truth is impersonal, and we can well afford to 
be indifferent to the channels through which it 
comes. If the postal service is efficient we do not 
quarrel with its employees, whatever may be their 
reputation. 

We are not troubled because the pearl is found 
in a diseased oyster. It is a precious gem. We 
do not remember that ambergris is a morbid secre- 
tion derived from the bile of the whale. It is a 
rare fragrance. 



JO DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

When we are less fastidious in our demands, wc 
will become more rapid learners. In mining for 
precious metals it does not disturb us to find the 
marks of the soil upon our working clothes and on 
those of our fellow-laborers. If we really seek the 
pearl of price we will be indifferent as to where we 
find it. Let us outgrow at the same time our hero- 
worship and censoriousness. They are alike un- 
worthy of us. Each of us has enough to do in 
solving his own problems without looking over the 
shoulders of his neighbors to see how they are 
handling theirs. 

Again, if we are to forgive our erring brother 
seventy times seven, shall we not extend the same 
consideration to ourselves, who possibly need it 
oftener? 

Our greatest grief and discouragement in life 
is in the consciousness that we have not lived 
up to our ideals. Constant self-chiding is in- 
tolerable. It depresses one to the point of help- 
lessness. 

Let us give to ourselves the cheerful and tireless 
encouragement in the face of failure which we 
would give another in whose purpose and success 
we had entire confidence. 

When we listen to the skilled players in an 
orchestra and our souls seem lifted up on waves 
of harmony it is hard to realize that every one of 
those musicians has struggled through many weary 



TOILING IN ROWING. yi 

hours and months of discord in the development 
of his artistic talent. 

When we suffer from interior discord we need 
to hold with unflinching confidence to the belief in 
the power of the soul to bring us ultimately the 
knowledge and peace of the Divine harmonies. 

It is not sufficient to tune a single string of the 
violin or one key of the piano. The entire instru- 
ment must be brought to concert pitch before the 
full power and beauty of its tone can be expressed. 

But let us enjoy and not quarrel with the tuning 
process in thought of the grand chords which we 
are making possible. 

Discord destroys an instrument that will not 
yield itself to harmony. Nature will not tolerate 
an instrument it cannot tune. The whole phil- 
osophy of mental healing lies in the recovery of 
a lost chord. The operation of this principle is 
shown in the domestic circle and community. 
Discord disintegrates. It is a centrifugal force. 
Harmony is centripetal and blends. The home or 
nation that does not develop harmony within 
itself cannot be long maintained. Life hews to 
the line, regardless of where the chips may fall. 
Its standard is perfection. It will recognize no 
other law in any of its kingdoms than the survival 
of the fittest. Extinction is the penalty of dis- 
obedience. 

Some of us live in prisons of fear. These are 



>]2 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

the true torture chambers of the Inquisition. Fear 
is the grand inquisitor who applies to us continu- 
ally the rack, the thumbscrew, and the firebrand. 

Some of us abide in cemeteries amid the tombs 
of memory, and are continually bringing garlands 
to the graves of our dead past. Some of us are 
cave-dwellers living on the lowest planes of animal 
existence and in the jungles of a merely sensual life. 

But to all of us come the voices of the spirit 
bidding us come out of our mental prisons, out 
of our chambers of horror, out of our caves and 
dungeons, into the glad freedom of true life, to 
leave the fever districts of the plains and climb the 
mountain-side, to leave the shadows of the valley 
and seek the sunlight of the hills, to leave the 
stagnant waters and come to living fountains. 

Thus shall we indeed " go out with joy and be 
led forth in peace while the mountains and the 
hills break forth before us into singing and all the 
trees of the field shall clap their hands." 



An intuitional nature that violates its spiritual 
impulses renders itself peculiarly liable to disease 



and suffering. 



TOILING IN ROWING. '/$ 



At the point of discouragement we are often 
nearest accomplishment. 

If we weather this cape we find the storm is 
over and the port in sight. 



74 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



It is a scattering and waste of force to lament 
and criticize what we cannot help. 



PATIENCE. 75 

IV. 
PATIENCE. 

Everything must be taken genially, and we must be at the 
top of our condition to understand anything rightly. 

— Emerson. 

The most unhappy man in the world is he that is not 
patient in adversity, for men are not killed with the adversity 
they have to bear, but with the impatience which they suffer. 
— Chas. Bailly, 1571. 

MORE than three hundred years ago these words 
that we have quoted of Charles Bailly's were cut by 
him into the walls of his cell, in London Tower, 
where he was confined as a political offender, 
awaiting death. Here is mental science, pure and 
simple, in a grander memorial inscription than is 
carved upon the walls of any church or temple of 
our day. How little the prisoner thought, as he 
patiently scratched these lines upon the stones 
of his dungeon, that three centuries afterward a 
new world would awaken to their truth and make 
it the cornerstone of metaphysics ! 

We have been so long accustomed to thinking 
of ourselves as the helpless victims of heredity 
and circumstance that when we begin to realize 
we are only the victims of our own impatient and 



J 6 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

ignorant will, we enter indeed upon a new psy- 
chology. 

How different a landscape looks when ap- 
proached from a new point of view ! So changed 
that in returning over a road which we passed for 
the first time but an hour before, we scarcely 
recognize it as one we have travelled. Every field 
and tree, every curve and angle, presents itself 
in an entirely new relation to the whole. 

So in our view of any truth : when we have 
changed its setting we get a different perspec- 
tive. 

In the attainment of spiritual freedom we are 
loosed at the same time from fear and desire. It 
is either the fear or the desire of change that pro- 
duces our discomfort. It is this that compels the 
passage of the soul from the objective to the sub- 
jective life through death, and brings it again from 
the subjective to the objective existence at birth. 

Before we can control and overcome all fixity 
of condition, and be able to enter and abide with 
equal ease and pleasure upon any plane, we must 
not only complete the education of the will, but 
must acquire perfect satisfaction through a larger 
knowledge of life's meaning, and a larger confi- 
dence in its purposes. 

The new term of " polarization " and the old term 
of "atonement" mean one and the same thing; 
the harmonizing of man's personal and mortal 



PATIENCE. 77 

nature with his impersonal and spiritual self; the 
bringing of every thought into ready subjection 
to the higher impulse. This is self-government by 
the immortal ego — the finding of the Christ 
within. 

If we understand that Supreme love never fail- 
eth, we know that its unwavering desire is for our 
highest good. This remains true whether we 
define our ideal as a personal God, as absolute 
law, or as the potent and individual ego related to 
the infinite whole. 

Its constant action is for the establishment of 
equilibrium. 

It is as plainly seen in the life of man as in 
the earthquake and the tornado. All phenomena 
are the expressions of this law of equilibrium. All 
the strangeness of human fate is equally a mani- 
festation of the same power in human life. Pride 
must have its fall as surely as a tree that has 
grown top-heavy. Every virtue becomes a vice in 
its extremity and reacts with the ultimate result of 
greater symmetry of character. 

It is very evident in all the work of modern 
healing that the vital principle effects a change of 
the impatient and discouraged thought. 

A conviction is aroused that health is possible 
and probable. 

It may come to the mind through faith in the 
Virgin Mary or some of the saints of the church, 



yS DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

through faith in prayer, in a hypnotic operator, or 
in the assurances of Christian Science and meta- 
physics. 

Healers of diverse theories and hostile camps are 
equally successful in their application of thought 
principles, and the faith of either the healer or the 
healed is the principle always present. 

If one school can fairly claim that its theories 
are justified by works, so can they all, though they 
be aliens and heretics to one another, and their 
definitions and methods radically differ. In all of 
them we find the common factor — faith — pro- 
ducing expectation of health, and changing mental 
conditions from negative to positive. It seems to 
make no difference in the results whether the faith 
is focused on an amulet, a shrine, a person, or a 
book. 

The healing principle is a positive thought, and 
anything that can arouse this to vigorous action 
will obtain results. The spirit which is behind 
every life and seeking continually larger expe- 
rience in its human form is positive in character 
and pure in purpose, however imperfect may be 
its manifestation. 

Sooner or later the human soul will recognize 
the truth of its divine origin and guidance. Noth- 
ing is gained by forcing its development. It must 
be educated to choose righteousness for itself. 

With growth of knowledge comes right choice ; 



PA TIENCE. 79 

for no one will deliberately invest his energies in 
lines that lead to bankruptcy. 

With choice comes power of accomplishment. 
All life tends to progress, and every power in the 
universe is aiming to secure the best results for all. 
In the perfected truth we find the seed. Within 
the seed we find the essence and the promise of 
the fruit. Seed and fruit are inseparably united. 
Together they complete the circle of being, though 
the arc lines of development are often immeasur- 
able to human observation. 

It is doubtful, after all, if the metaphysical or 
religious healer is often anything more than the 
doctor's boy who carries around the medicine-case 
and delivers the prescription prepared by wiser 
intelligences in the unseen. 

May it not be true that such greater ones some- 
times discern the needs of our humanity better 
than we, provide the healing power, and bring to- 
gether the healer and the sufferer — indifferent to 
the label of the cure ? It flatters our petty vanities 
to believe that " we are the people, and wisdom 
shall die with us." But how shall we explain the 
good work that is done by those who have no sym- 
pathy in our peculiar views? Does it not appear 
that there is sometimes but small relation between 
theory and practice, and there may be other ele- 
ments in life than those that we have catalogued 
in our intellectual laboratories. Perhaps many are 



80 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

fitting themselves to be the real healers of the 
future, while now only playing doctor, and dis- 
tributing the remedies prepared by others. 

But there is abundant reason for confidence in 
those others, and we need never distrust their wis- 
dom and skill in any case to which they summon 
us as helpers, if we are really working on the 
highest lines. 

It is not necessary that healer or .patient should 
be sensible of the effect of any particular treat- 
ment. The finer forces of nature do not appeal to 
the senses. They work below the surface of life 
and develop plant growth in darkened cells beneath 
the ground, All our forces are spiritual. The 
senses are only organs or tools through which we 
come in touch with matter. They are like the 
duplex wires of telegraphy over which we send 
and receive soul messages on the objective plane. 
We should never lose sight of the fact that it is the 
soul that stands at the transmitter and receiver, 
and at all times is the operator. It is the soul 
that sees, hears, feels, tastes, and smells. If any 
defect appear in the instrument or any obstruc- 
tion in the circuit we must call upon the soul 
to repair the damage and to remove the difficulty. 
Its resources of intelligence and power are always 
equal to the task. It can summon all necessary 
aid. It is its business to maintain an equilibrium 
of forces, that inspiration and expression may 
compensate each other always. 



PATIENCE. 8 1 

The fountain of life is perennial. It is im- 
possible to choke the spring. Through all the 
overlying rubbish that our passions and sen- 
suality have heaped upon it it still bubbles up 
and makes for itself an open channel, whether in 
the rock or marsh-lands. Ever will its waters find 
the sea, refreshing every pasture through which 
they flow. 

As the spiritual principle gains ascendency the 
objective life is permeated more and more by the 
subjective. Life shows more of inspiration and 
less of trance conditions. We require less sleep 
and a lessened degree of torpor in the night hours, 
while our different mental states approach each 
other. Our minds are more active in repose and 
more tranquil in activity. 

Highly developed spiritual natures scarcely re- 
quire the refreshment of unconscious sleep. The 
range of spiritual activity is widened and less inter- 
rupted as the two conditions blend. We will ulti- 
mately find the positive force of spiritual will 
asserting itself over all negative states. 

When one is wakeful at night he is impatient in 
his restlessness and struggles for sleep. 

If he would only accept the insomnia with cheer- 
fulness it would bring no bad results, and would 
the sooner pass away. 

Insomnia often opens the doors of a spiritual 
night school, in which we may obtain many a val- 



82 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

uable revelation if we will only listen patiently. 
In our activities of the day our spiritual faculties 
are often dulled. In the quiet hours of the night 
the subjective side of nature is presented to us 
with many lessons that are well worth the hours 
of wakefulness they cost, for they bring spiritual 
tonics with them more refreshing than the ordi- 
nary slumbers. 

If we are not responsible for the thoughts that 
pass our doors we are at least responsible for those 
that we admit and entertain. 

Every hour of true thought holds the entire 
nature to its keynote and silently works its good 
even in unconsciousness. Every hour of wrong 
thinking brings disintegration and confusion. 
These healing or hurtful processes are in continu- 
ous operation. Sooner or later they will manifest 
results in the external, in both body and sur- 
roundings. 

No one is shut out from the tuneful melodies of 
life except by his own choice. Wherever his lot is 
cast he is within the province of harmonious law. 

Many suffer from excessive culture and refine- 
ment. They lack sinew and fibre and have forgot- 
ten the meaning of the words " robust " and 
" stalwart." They are sickly, sensational, and sen- 
timental. It is a secret gratification to believe 
their symptoms are so delicate and subtle as to 
baffle the physicians and be classed as " peculiar" 



PATIENCE. 83 

and "unusual." Their real difficulty is selfishness, 
though such a diagnosis would sound coarse and 
offensive to their sensitive ears. They need the 
bitter tonics of honest truth, but prefer the sweets 
that have already cloyed their stomachs and ob- 
structed their digestion. A good, sound mental 
shock would bring them to a rallying-point and 
be of greater benefit than an electric current or a 
change of climate. Adversity would often prove 
their very best friend. 

Nervous prostration is not a common disease 
among the poorer classes. It is a luxury beyond 
their purse, like grand opera or foreign travel. It 
belongs peculiarly to those whom Emerson de- 
scribes as having gone to sleep upon the cushion 
of advantages, and has lately been named " ner- 
vous prosperity." 

The arousing of the soul is an infallible remedy. 

We often complain severely of others, to con- 
ceal our dissatisfaction with ourselves. 

It is usually ourselves that we are secretly up- 
braiding while condemning others, and if our 
peace of mind could be restored we would find 
but little difficulty in approving or excusing those 
in whom we have found the greatest fault. 

We may cheerfully note it as a sign of progress 
when we have got beyond the point of wishing to 
defend ourselves. 

When we have admitted our own responsibility 



84 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

for a fault we have taken the first step toward its 
correction and brushed aside many difficulties 
from our path. 

The faults we criticise are usually our own, 
though we may imagine ourselves particularly 
exempt from them. The breach in our own in- 
trenchments is generally at the point at which we 
most quickly perceive the weakness of others. 

The old French proverb is universally true — 
" Whosoever excuses himself accuses himself." 
We are not easily sensitive to accusations we know 
to be false. 

Let us be willing to be misunderstood, to be 
even silenced in an argument, rather than insist to 
the point of irritation and prolong dispute. 

Why should we care to maintain our position so 
tenaciously and explain our personal views? 

Truth does not need us for her champion. She 
is no weakling and is indifferent to our espousal of 
her cause. 

Our only real concern should be to stand right 
in the opinion and judgment of our own soul. 

Let no word be spoken in the home that we 
would wish recalled when we look into the grave 
of any of our loved ones. The bitterness of such 
a recollection in that hour adds unutterable anguish 
to bereavement. 

We may be very sure that we can paint no 
daub upon the canvas of our life which our own 



PATIENCE. 85 

eyes will not have to contemplate some day from 
the standpoint of a higher knowledge of the har- 
mony of color and the art of living. We must 
suffer keenly from this post-mortem study and 
toil painfully till we have painted out the sad dis- 
coloring and worked our highest standards into 
the living canvas. 

There will come a time to all of us when every 
unkind word and every cruel thought will be a 
sounding echo in the corridors of memory, when 
every selfish soul shall walk alone and desolate, 
unable to shut out the voices of its past, which 
bring to it a more exquisite torture than was ever 
pictured in the hells of Dante's " Purgatorio." 

Patience and indifference are of the greatest 
value in the correction of disturbed conditions. 
We know that mental exaltation will render one 
insensible to pain, and many seek and apply it as 
they would an opiate. But while it may be tem- 
porarily useful it has secondary effects that leave 
conditions of unrest. It is equally true in meta- 
physics as in physics that " action and reaction 
are equal and in opposite directions." 

The almost inevitable consequence of times of 
" uplifting " is a most serious downfalling. The 
mental pendulum swings back to its completion 
of the arc upon the opposite side. When Moses 
comes down from Sinai he breaks the tablets of 
the law in his impatience at the unexpected idol- 



86 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

atry of his people. At the foot of the mountain 
of Transfiguration Jesus is roused to a severe 
rebuke of the disciples who have been trying to 
do good work in his absence, but have failed in 
their attempt. Musicians are often quarrelsome 
in spite of the fact that their constant employment 
is the production of harmony. 

Spiritualists are often deeply sorrowful at the 
death of friends, notwithstanding their confidence 
in continued communion. 

Metaphysicians are often filled with anxious 
thought in the midst of their warfare against 
worry. The most reasonable solution of these 
mysteries lies in the analysis of the emotions. 

Through the dangerous indulgence of elation 
we involve ourselves in discords of depression. 
The old hymn aptly expressed the feeling common 
to all when on the unaccustomed mountain-top : 

" Oh, could my soul but stay 

In such a frame as this, 
And sit and sing itself away 

To everlasting bliss."" 

But we feel we cannot remain in the higher alti- 
tudes. At the same time we resent the necessity of 
the ordinary duties and associations of life which 
seem to demand of us a certain condescension. 
This is a mistaken view ; the fault is in our estimate 
of the value of the ecstasy. Emotional states are 



PATIENCE. 87 

necessarily transient and dangerous. Truly spir- 
itual conditions are abiding and imperishable. 
There are breezy uplands where the atmospheres 
are always clear, and the sunlight perpetually ra- 
diant. 

We attain to these states only when we climb 
by paths of principle, and not through the ex- 
perience of the emotions. They are reached as 
well through the busiest and most commonplace 
activities of life as in the seclusion of the scholar 
and recluse. They are superior to all environ- 
ment and suffer no reactions. They are indiffer- 
ent to sensation because confident of results. 

This power is found in the complete recogni- 
tion of the greater self. It regards the personal or 
lesser self as a student and pupil. When it suffers 
it comforts this " alter ego " with the reassurance 
of its ability to overcome all pain through knowl- 
edge rather than through rapture. 

It teaches the lesser self to say, " I desire this 
experience to continue till I have learned its 
lesson. I cheerfully consent to any price that life 
demands for wisdom." 

Our best lessons are often learned when suffer- 
ing reveals us to ourselves. Should we not then 
make friends with our troubles, instead of angrily 
despising them? 

Let us bid them do their will upon us — not 
defiantly, but with honest purpose of learning the 



88 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

power of spirit to destroy pain. Give the thumb- 
screws another turn, Life, and I will find within 
myself a stronger force than anguish. I will not 
be a slave to suffering. I will not evade by flight, 
but I will say of truth, " Though it slay me yet will 
I trust in it," and from the anguish will be born a 
peace that is abiding and makes suffering hence- 
forth impossible. 

When we indulge impatience we produce dis- 
turbed conditions of the soul. Our higher self 
knows the repose of infinite peace, while the mortal 
feels only the difficulty of its attainment. 

The higher self is as the ocean rolling its great 
tides outward, while the personal self is as the 
wind blowing shoreward ; and so the surface of the 
life is agitated and we suffer from the conflict of 
wind and tide. 

When we bring these forces into consonant action 
they will manifest a boundless power. 

Mere theories will not heal life's troubles. It is 
only by doing the will of the greater self that we 
can knowthe true doctrine of peace and power. We 
can never learn to swim by clinging with one hand 
to the shore. We can never be rid of our difficulties 
as long as we insist on tightly clutching and con- 
stantly reviewing them. It is as if we should open 
an old sore to see if it were healing. We must let 
go of the intense and selfish thought. In the 
miracles of healing, which are so often reported by 



PA TIENCE. 89 

the Roman Catholic Church, it is noticeable that 
the mind of the devotee has been first prepared by 
turning the thought away from his own sufferings 
to those of another. In a partial transcript of an 
offer of indulgence copied from the walls of a 
cathedral we find the following: 

" A partial indulgence may be gained by reciting 
before this cross with sorrowful heart seven times 
the Hail Mary in honor of the sorrows of the 
Blessed Virgin ; " and again the same, " in honor 
of the sacred wounds of our Lord." The soul of 
the suppliant is thus first confirmed in patience, 
and then exercised in adoration and led to expect 
with confidence the healing which so often follows 
its devotions. 

The emotional and sensual natures are closely 
allied. 

Spiritual life manifests a higher purpose and 
power than are shown in self-indulgence. 

The real value of any position of responsibility 
is in its opportunities of service rather than of gain. 

Until we have learned this truth we are not 
fitted for large work in positions of trust and influ- 
ence. Selfishness narrows the horizon, paralyzes 
action, and neutralizes energy. " Service " is the 
word of power and healing, and it is always certain 
that " He that loseth his life shall find it." 

We cannot help or hinder another except with 
his consent. 



go DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

This may be given perhaps unconsciously and 
through a state of mind which has become recep- 
tive, not as the result of deliberate choice so much 
as from an habitual tendency, as a heroic mind is 
open always to heroic impulses even when uncon- 
sciously conveyed. Marconi's electric currents are 
projected as waves or radiations and their positive 
motion registered upon a sensitive receiver. 

If the receiver were not adapted to the current 
it would be unaffected by it and remain inert. 
The mind that is not sensitized to evil cannot be 
influenced by evil thought. 

The mind that is not accustomed to good can- 
not receive good thought. 

" To him that hath is given " — simply for the 
reason that such are most receptive. 

Power and sensibility are always joined. We 
have commonly imagined them divorced. Sensi- 
tiveness is no right plea for weakness. 

The strongest forces are the most subtle and 
insidious. 

The rankest poisons are often the most inodor- 
ous. The most rapid agencies are silent ones. 

Insulation is an important factor in laboratory 
work. 

This is equally true in the work of a mental 
healer. A certain mental insulation of the patient 
is always necessary. 

When a single current would work good results 



PA TIENCE. 9 1 

diverse currents of different rates through different 
healers are apt to bring confusion and injury to the 
patient. It is a molecular bombardment of mixed 
forces. Patience is a most important factor in the 
accomplishment of mental cures. The truly scien- 
tific mind is never impatient. It moves with bold- 
ness, deliberation, and confidence. 

Many an invalid who has suffered from physicians 
for months and years, until driven to try as a last 
alternative a course of mental treatment, impatiently 
protests against the least delay if positive results 
are not immediately obtained. 

He forgets that often a new growth must be 
established and developed in the diseased organs, 
and that nature sometimes does this work in the 
unseen a long time before a change is manifested 
at the surface. Doubtless much real good in 
mental work is sacrificed by the impatience of 
the sufferer. Actual results are often silently 
accomplished, but have not yet appeared when 
the invalid decides to try another healer or to 
abandon altogether what to him is only an ex- 
periment, 

If we realized more intelligently the nature of 
thought we would feel positive assurance of its 
work as we do of the seed when we have buried 
it and watered it without a doubt of its finding its 
way above the ground. We are content to wait 
for it to grow. Every thought will surely find its 



92 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

proper soil, will root itself, and bear its fruit 
whether of good or evil. 

Thought flies always straight to its mark. It 
is more intelligent than bird or bee, and finds its 
destination with greater ease. We need not fear 
it will miscarry. It may remain a long time in 
the aura of an individual, and gain entrance only 
when his armor is loosened. 

When we are open to good influences they 
always find their way to us. 

When we choose the lower impulses they fasten 
themselves upon us and feed on our vitality like 
parasites. 

We are not teachable as long as we are vexed 
by criticism. 

Patience is an element of both power and freedom. 

Doubts produce impatience and are non-con- 
ductors of spiritual currents. Knowledge comes 
through patient listening to the voice of the 
Greater Self. Concentration is confidence. 

That for which we anxiously strive with too 
earnest endeavor often brings the least result, and 
if at last attained, the usual consequence is dis- 
appointment. 

Nature embodies in a drop of dew the same 
force it expresses in a cloud-burst or tornado. 
Yet the one nourishes and the others destroy. 

When we are in harmony with life through a 
right purpose, its vigorous energies find expression 



PA TIENCE. 93 

through us without effort. What we gain through 
strife seldom proves of value, and often we find 
that the obstacle we have crushed was a safe- 
guard against suffering. If we have broken it 
down by our impatience we have opened an avenue 
of pain. 

But even in such experience we prove our need 
of the trouble we precipitated by our rashness. 
Like children, we have cried and struggled for the 
candy that has made us ill, but through the illness 
we may learn a lesson and develop greater strength. 

If the sweets had contained a poison that was 
fatal we would have found them unattainable. The 
barriers would not have given way and we would 
have been defeated in our purpose. 

Life is kinder to us than we know. She would be 
far gentler still if we ourselves permitted it. We 
compel her often to use force to hold us back from 
self-destruction. Of force she has unlimited com- 
mand. Her mighty powers we have never gauged. 

The very snowflake which falls so gently and 
looks so white and peaceful holds greater energies 
than any we have yet developed in our most 
powerful explosives. 

Nature confers her favors only on her friends. 
While we distrust life at any point we cannot fully 
learn its secrets or its joys. Faith must needs be 
recognized as the normal action of the human 
mind ; not faith in ecclesiastical dogma or scien- 



94 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

tific theory, but faith in the goodness of life itself, 
— in its high possibilities and powers. These are 
revealed only to those who listen trustfully to the 
voice of the soul. 

In dealing with the question of intellect we are 
sometimes in danger of false distinctions and arbi- 
trary definitions. 

Spirit can be nothing less than intellectual, and 
intellect rightly instructed can be nothing less 
than spiritual. The very meaning of the word is 
" understanding." 

A truly educated intellect can never be a stum- 
bling-block to spiritual advancement. It is, on the 
contrary, essential to spiritual perceptions. 

Intuition is only instantaneous reason, and 
sooner or later it can always give of itself a rational 
justification. 

There can be no such thing as " pride of intel- 
lect," because an enlightened intelligence must 
have outgrown pride. All pride is ignorance and 
marks the absence of illumination. It is not a 
taint of intellectual development, but shows the 
lack of it. One who is truly intellectual never 
shows impatience at the want of education in 
another, nor does he insist upon the absolute cor- 
rectness of his own opinions, knowing well that 
in the journey he has travelled his point of view 
has often changed, and that it will doubtless 
change again. 



PATIENCE. 95 

We set out upon the road with the reckless 
gladness of childhood. We never doubt that the 
world was made for us. It is truly our oyster and 
we are to open it. We proceed merrily with our 
task, and at first all things give way to us. 

Later on we burden ourselves with accumula- 
tions. We involve ourselves, through our ambi- 
tions, in endless complications and perplexities. 

We even believe this necessary to the increasing 
responsibilities of life, and sigh hopelessly some- 
times for the simplicity of the earlier years. What 
is the nature of the load under which our shoulders 
stoop and the hair turns gray? Will we dare ex- 
amine the pack we carry? Is it not weighted with 
unnecessary things, such as regrets and griefs at 
our disillusions? 

Are we calling ourselves failures and sorrowing 
for neglected opportunities? Are we sore at the 
recollection of injustice we have suffered and blam- 
ing others for our troubles? Are we burdened 
with despondency which turns our eyes backward 
and dims our vision to the beauties of the road 
that we are travelling? Or are we, in a fever of 
anticipation, straining our sight to look forward 
and hurrying our steps in impatience and rest- 
lessness to reach an uncertain goal? 

Are we embarrassed with anxieties for others, 
forgetting that each life is secure in its own orbit 
even though we may not understand its course? 



g6 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

If our suffering has come through any of these 
causes it will quickly pass when we have recognized 
our own and others true relation to the universe. 

There is a Chinese padlock which opens only to 
the spelling of a name to which its wards are fitted. 

Every difficulty we encounter has some key 
which will unlock it when we have discovered the 
right word and learned to fit it to its place. It 
may be " Trust," " Persistence," " Confidence," or 
" Gladness." 

The joy bells are always ringing. If our hear- 
ing has been dulled by the tensity of selfishness 
their sweet chimes will not reach us till we have 
unstopped our ears and let go of our sorrows. 
Patience has not had her perfect work until we 
have become indifferent to trouble and vexation. 
From this point we go forward fearlessly, assured 
of a complete and early conquest. 

We can cheerfully submit to anything we think 
will bring us good. 

If we are thoroughly assured that life is governed 
in every detail by beneficent law we quickly find 
that all its processes are painless and enjoyable. 

Its gravest trial then becomes " the light afflic- 
tion which is but for a moment." 



All impatience disturbs the circulation, scatters 
force, and makes concentration difficult if not im- 
possible. 



PA TIENCE. 97 



We may be sure there is deliverance from every 
unfavorable condition of our lives when we have 
fitted ourselves to accept it. 

It is useless to try to get rid of suffering before 
we have learned its lesson. Life moves with 
accurate precision upon the lines that we make 
necessary. 



98 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



All the doors of life are inscribed " Pull." They 
open inward toward the individual himself; and 
yet we often read amiss, and think they are marked 
"Push." 

We do not estimate at its true value the mag- 
netic power of thought, which draws to us what we 
confidently seek, if we only fix the centre of attrac- 
tion and hold it steadily to its work. 



MASTER MARINERS. 99 

V. 

MASTER MARINERS. 

COAST NOTES. 

Blow the wind East or blow it West, 
Whichever wind blows is the best." 



" I count it kinglier far to wait, 

Aye, wait and wait a thousand years, 
Than once to doubt or challenge fate. 1 ' 

— Joaquin Miller. 

The evolution of the spiritual man is simply the 
education of a navigator. 

The boy who takes his toy ship to the pond will 
set its little rudder to counteract the wind that is 
blowing, and launch it without a pilot on its mimic 
voyage. 

If the wind doesn't change, his venture moves 
directly toward the other bank, but otherwise it is 
the sport of breeze and current — blown hither and 
thither until it drifts ashore. 

If a living pilot were aboard he could shape its 
course intelligently, and make a prosperous voyage 
in the face of any and all winds. 

An undeveloped man who has not learned to 
grasp the helm of his being, and direct its course 



IOO DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

with distinct purpose and skill, is drifting on the sea 
of life. 

When he awakens to this discovery his first im- 
pulse is to place himself in tow of some stronger 
and wiser intelligence than his own. This is well 
if his aim be self-development and independent 
navigation. But matiy who are enrolled as dis- 
ciples of metaphysics are content to sail so long 
as the water is smooth and the breezes suit them. 
As soon as the sea roughens or the wind veers, 
their seamanship is all at fault, and they signal 
for a pilot. 

What would be thought of the navigator who 
could never loosen his canvas in open water, but 
was dependent on the tug master to tow him 
across the seas; or who would steer for port in 
every change of weather? 

We need to learn that there are no adverse 
winds to the able seaman. He makes every gust 
to serve him. He does not expect to make his 
voyage with the breeze " dead aft." He is even 
content to meet it sometimes " dead ahead," and 
shorten sail or lie " head on " to the great seas 
and let it blow, knowing that in a few hours it will 
shift to a more favorable quarter. He may gain 
but a single mile upon his course in a whole day's 
sailing. Yet that mile is as truly a part of his voy- 
age as the two or three hundred that he clears an- 
other day. All these exigencies were taken into 



MASTER MARINERS. IOI 

consideration and provided for before he left the 
shelter of the bay. He knew he would meet 
stormy winds and tempestuous seas, but also knew 
his seamanship was competent to bring him safely 
through them, and that every voyage would de- 
velop larger knowledge through experience. 

There is no trouble that can come to us but car- 
ries with it food for spiritual life. 

There is no cloud, however black, that hangs 
above us but is charged with light that can illumi- 
nate the darkest passes of our journey. 

We must transmute the suffering and draw the 
lightning. 

We can turn the baser metals into gold, and 
charge electric batteries with the force of thunder- 
bolts. 

We are divine alchemists. Our laboratory is 
perfectly equipped with heat and light and power. 

Let us forget our anxieties and employ our- 
selves with the study and direction of the tre- 
mendous forces which course through us. 

Let us leave the little personal man outside and 
not allow ourselves to be bothered with his com- 
plaints. He can come in when he gets ready, 
share our experiments, and enjoy our satisfaction. 
There is a door always open, and he can find it 
when he will. Why should we weary ourselves 
with his lamentations? 

What cares the scientist for the direction of the 



102 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

weather-vane when he is busy with his retorts and 
crucibles — absorbed with the study and develop- 
ment of nature's energies — which he controls at 
will ! 

When a beam of the eternal day has flashed 
across one's path his most grievous trouble be- 
comes trifling, and shrinks into such insignificance 
that he ceases to question his soul regarding suffer- 
ing. No thought of self-pity or injustice can per- 
plex him in that noonday light. His head is above 
the clouds — above the swirl of waters that seemed 
so threatening before. The winds are no longer 
boisterous. 

When this light has really dawned upon the 
consciousness, the present and future are ab- 
sorbed in it. It is the one great reality of 
existence. It blends all experiences in complete 
harmony. One no longer seeks sleep or death 
as a refuge from sorrows, for pain has passed 
like a mist that has rolled away before the 
sun of the morning. Humanity has recognized 
its destiny, and looks enraptured like a toil-worn 
traveller who gazes from a lofty summit upon the 
glory of a landscape that transcends his most con- 
fident expectations and surpasses his most daring 
imagination. 

Know that death is not the only gateway 
through which we reach this realization. It may 
come through pain or pleasure in the hour of 



MASTER MARINERS. 103 

struggle or of stillness. But in that moment one 
is born again. He steps beyond all thought or 
care of suffering forever. Pain and pleasure are 
alike swallowed up in the superb sense of being. 

The King has come to his own. 

It is always ours to choose upon what seas we 
will embark, and to what winds we will trim our 
sails. 

Having made the choice, we find our only effort 
is to hold ourselves in accord with the tides and 
currents that bear us onward. We have become 
a part of their life, and our relation to them is 
governed by ourselves. 

We do not realize the uses of ebb tides in the 
affairs of men. In the diurnal movements of the 
sea the flood comes in and carries the rubbish high 
upon the shore, where it is disinfected by the sun. 
The ebb tide sweeps the sands clean, carrying out 
the waste to be buried in the ocean depths. The 
petty disorders of the beach are quickly washed 
away. So man is cleansed and healed by both 
the flood tides and the ebb, in his varying ex- 
periences of prosperity and adversity. 

Let him not be impatient at low tide. The waves 
will bring back what they floated away. They 
will cast it again at his feet cleansed and freshened 
by the deep waters. 

The best ships look uncouth and useless when 
stranded upon dry sands, but when the sea comes 



104 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

tumbling in again they are soon afloat and pull- 
ing at their hawsers as if impatient for another 
voyage. The tides have brought to them new life 
and opportunity. The waiting is ended, for the 
ebb is passed. 

When the tides serve we may launch our ven- 
tures, but waiting is often the part of wisdom, and 
we should wait with patience. 

Life has its light-towers upon all headlands. 

Every reef is marked by its lightships and bell- 
buoys. 

It has its signal circuits so established that we 
cannot break their currents without the sounding 
of alarm bells. 

This is proved on every plane of human activity. 
If we swerve to the least degree from our proper 
channel that very instant do we put in motion 
cause of suffering. The longer we hold upon the 
mistaken course the more the pain is deepened. 

Persistence in error brings us to the shoals on 
which our life craft will be wrecked. A new ship 
will be necessary before we can resume our voy- 
age. It is well to heed our earliest warnings if we 
wish smooth passages. 

An engineer watches his steam and water gauges 
and maintains them at the proper level for the 
highest power. He can easily know when the 
steam in his boilers is getting low and the water 
too high. 



MASTER MARINERS. 1 05 

The remedy is in the fuel pile, and, opening the 
furnace doors, he feeds the fires afresh while the 
machinery moves with a new vigor. 

The officer of the weather bureau, from his 
tower, studies his instruments that show the ac- 
tion of wind and weather, and from his signal 
staff he flies the warning of cold waves and hur- 
ricanes. 

It is very necessary for us to note storm signals 
in ourselves and one another, and govern our days 
accordingly. 

We must study carefully the soul forces within 
us in order to control and direct their energies, 
must feed our fires and keep our gauges clean. 

There is never lack of energy. Our work is to 
direct its application wisely to our own require- 
ments. We are often impatient for the immediate 
solution of the entire problem. If we will quietly 
content ourselves with the occupation of the day, 
applying thoroughly the few principles of life's 
arithmetic we have acquired to the arrangement 
of the factors in our hands, we will oftener be 
pleasantly surprised than disappointed with results. 

Our sailing will bring us more frequently into 
smooth waters than rough ones. The simple tables 
of spiritual logarithms provide us with all that 
we require for our mortal navigation. 

We have scarcely embarked as yet upon the 
great sea of Truth. We are only dropping down 



I06 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

the bay. It will be some time before we feel the 
ground-swell of the ocean under us, and begin to 
realize that we are " off soundings." 

The most serious work that we have yet at- 
tempted is only coasting in sight of shore. Before 
we can safely navigate the open sea we must learn 
to command and obey. 

The troubles of to-day are not those that most 
disturb us, but the troubles of to-morrow. 

We feel equal to the struggle of the present 
moment, but are distressed at the thought of that 
which looms upon the horizon of the future — ■ 
that which is just swinging across the range of our 
perspective and stands between us and the sun, 
making twilight of the noonday and chilling our 
blood with fear. It is the gathering storm that 
most affrights us. 

To forestall the duty of any hour is as undesir- 
able as to neglect it when it comes. 

Prematurity is as dangerous a disease as pro- 
crastination, and often far more costly in time and 
treasure. Every responsibility arrives with its at- 
tendant factors and environment. These cannot 
be properly combined in any other hour than that 
to which they belong. Let us revise the old proverb 
and know 

There is never a slip 
'Twixt the cup and the lip 
For which fate intends it. 



MASTER MARINERS. 1 07 

It is not always possible to trace the connection 
between cause and consequence in any particular 
experience, but we may be always sure the cause 
lies hidden in ourselves. As we work upon this 
principle we find our understanding and discern- 
ment grow more accurate with every day. 

Sometimes cause and consequence lie so close 
together that we have no difficulty in perceiving 
the straight line connecting them. 

Sometimes the cause lies hidden in a remote 
event or impulse which was indulged long ago 
and has been long forgotten. 

Sometimes it dates back to weaknesses we 
thought we had outgrown and which have made 
no sign for many years. Some unusual event has 
waked up slumbering sensations and put them 
again in evidence, to our most serious discomfort 
and chagrin. Perhaps we say, " I have been really 
tranquil, yet this trouble comes." 

No crop is ever grown except from seed, but 
seed may lie long buried in the ground and mani- 
fest its dormant power of fruitfulness in some 
quite unexpected conditions of heat or moisture. 
A man in middle age who has acquired unusual 
self-possession may suffer from head troubles that 
are the result of early tempers. In a time when 
negative conditions prevail over the positive the 
seed of this old weakness will germinate and show 
itself in symptoms that may baffle the physicians. 



108 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Some poisons work more speedily than others. 
Some may remain latent and unsuspected in the 
system through long periods of time. 

The suffering and sorrow of to-day may be the 
ripened fruit of yesterday's sowing, or many har- 
vests may have been gathered since the seed of this 
particular experience was planted. 

And yet we need not fear a lurking evil after 
we have diligently sought its root and used the 
knife of mental surgery with an unfaltering pur- 
pose. If suffering continues we may know that 
we have spared some nerve or tendon that should 
have been cut away or left some grain of poison 
in the system that needs to be expelled. Spiritual 
cleansing must be thorough and heroic if we wish 
it to be effectual. 

The crimson and scarlet must be made as white 
as snow. This is always within our power if it is 
within our purpose. 

There is no virtue but may become exaggerated 
and distorted. When it becomes so pronounced 
as to cause self-complacency in the mind of its 
possessor it has passed the line of equilibrium and 
reached this stage. 

The faintest trace of pride in any virtuous char- 
acteristic marks decay, and shows a vicious ten- 
dency, for pride and self-complacency find lodg- 
ment only in an unsound mind. 

What we are governs what we believe. " Be- 



MASTER MARINERS. 109 

lief" does not govern life. It is the expression 
of being. It comes from within, and is the indica- 
tion of the point of development that has been 
reached. 

Character is the growth of that which we call 
" trouble," as the trunk of the forest tree is fed by 
the mould of its dead leaves lying about its roots. 
It seems to part reluctantly with the summer foli- 
age, which has been its glory, and which the 
autumn winds tear from its branches till they are 
stripped and bare ; yet through this very process 
the way is prepared for a new and larger growth 
when the next spring comes round. So even 
the old treasures have a part in the new glory 
which has been made possible by their death. 
We must needs let go of the old life to make a 
larger and better experience possible. 

When we make our happiness dependent upon 
persons, things, and places, the conditions are 
beyond our control, and we are subject to many 
alternations of hope and sorrow. 

When we assume the entire responsibility, and 
look for all causes in ourselves, there is no mo- 
ment in which we do not govern. In one case we 
are crossing a river upon broken ice, springing 
from one cake to another, as they are driven by 
the currents, never secure of our footing, and in 
continual danger. 

In the other we are as navigators, with a sound 



ITO DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

craft under us, in which we calmly set both sail and 
rudder, and direct our course without anxiety to 
the port we wish to reach. It is the first lesson 
of power to learn that all possibilities centre in the 
individual will. 

There is no such thing as intermittent law. 

Unless action is constant and unvarying it does 
not manifest a law. A law does not operate at one 
time and suspend its action in another. If this 
were true we could never depend upon results. If 
law is supreme it can never lapse. Then we have 
no alternative, if we insist on " accidents," than 
that of a chaotic universe. 

It does not follow that the strict relation between 
cause and consequence is interrupted because we 
cannot, in any particular case, trace the unbroken 
connection. 

If a man's life at any point could become un- 
willingly subordinated to another so as to make 
of him a " victim," and relieve him of the respon- 
sibility of consequences, he would not be a free 
agent, and our teaching of freedom and respon- 
sibility would be false. If man suffers from acci- 
dent he is not living under the dominion of law. 

If, however, the cause of the " accident" lies in 
the man's own Karma, the law is vindicated and 
established, and we may rest secure in its benefi- 
cent operation in every life. The mills of the gods 
grind so slowly that the grist of to-day may have 



MASTER MARINERS. \\\ 

been put into the hopper in some incarnation far 
remote, but doubtless by the man's own hands, 
for it is only our own grist that comes to us 
through the mill of life. 

We are like eagles chained to a barnyard perch. 
We flutter our wings uselessly and turn a restless 
eye to the mountain-peak where lies our home, 
but every time we seek to rise we feel the hurt 
of the tether which holds us down. 

We do not realize that we are ensnared in our 
own mistaken thoughts and purposes — self-hyp- 
notized and paralyzed with fear. 

We learn to look upon ourselves as captives — 
until there comes a day when a new light shines 
into our soul, our chains fall from us, and we stand 
erect and free. 

Some truths are suddenly revealed to one in 
middle life which he has never before perceived. 

They flash upon his consciousness like the light 
of distant stars of his own planetary system — 
travelling toward him for ages and just arrived at 
the outermost bounds of his spiritual horizon. 

When a shipwrecked mariner has been cast upon 
a desert island his first thought is to raise a mast 
and fly a signal of distress. Day after day he goes 
to the hill-top and scans the sky line anxiously, 
looking off to every point of the compass in the 
hope of sighting a passing vessel. After long 
waiting he may open his eyes some morning to 



112 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

discover that while he slept a ship had anchored 
within hail. He is again in touch with his fellow- 
men, and a way is suddenly opened to return to 
all that he holds most dear. 

How many an anxious one has watched for a 
passing sail to rescue him from some shipwreck 
upon the shoals of human life — the shoals of 
broken health or fortune, or a shattered home ! 
How, day after day, he has gone, perhaps, to his 
little lookout, and returned from his search disap- 
pointed and hopeless, — to awaken at last to the 
realization that in all his months of weary watch- 
ing help had been upon the way ! In the hours of 
the long night relief had come from some quite 
unexpected quarter, and his waiting and exile are 
ended. 

There is never a moment in life when any of us 
can really justify discouragement. 

It is easy to say "the unexpected happens," but 
why should not the unexpected always be our 
expected good ? 

Why should our horizon be ever darkened by 
the mists of dejection or the thunder clouds of 
despair? 

We cannot look out clearly through the windows 
of the soul when they are wet with the cold rains 
of sorrow. 

The spiritual eye is telescopic* and never fails to 
serve the tranquil confidence of spiritual wisdom. 



MASTER MARINERS. I I 3 

The same winds blow for us all, but they serve 
us upon different tacks according as we set our 
sails. 

Some men need a tornado to drive them into 
their true course, and some need to be cast on 
desert islands before they realize their faulty 
navigation. 

As mariners are guided by the headlands on the 
coast, and mountain travellers by certain peaks so 
high they never can lose sight of them, and as 
desert pilgrims watch the sun and stars in journey- 
ing across the trackless wastes, so should we in 
hours of bewilderment look for the spiritual peaks 
and headlands we call principles. 

These are to us as fixed stars in the heavens, 
guiding us through every wilderness that has 
seemed impenetrable and bringing us surely to the 
places of rest and gladness. 



Until we can see and understand both sides of 
life we cannot rightly judge " success " or ''fail- 
ure." 



114 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



Thought principles are like electric currents in 
live wires. 

If misunderstood and improperly handled they 
are dangerous, and sometimes kill instead of serv- 
ing us. 



MASTER MARINERS. I I 5 



Instead of shrinking from our tests and trials let 
us regard them as opportunities of advancement. 
Like the school examinations, they open the way 
to higher classes and always precede promotion. 



Il6 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



No conquest is complete that leaves behind it 
either aversion or desire. 

When we neither flinch from an experience nor 
covet it, when we can enjoy or do without it with 
equal satisfaction, we have arrived at spiritual 
indifference, which is true evidence of spiritual 
mastery. 



WILL. I I 7 

VI. 

WILL. 

" Stronger than woe is will." — Edwin Arnold. 
Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. — yesus. 

All power is most effectually applied through 
concentration. 

In mechanics we bring the tempered steel to a 
fine point to pierce the solid substance or to an 
edge for cutting. 

Thought can both pierce and cut, but it must 
have point and edge and be applied by the energy 
of will. The difficulty is not in our tools, but in 
the want of skill with which we handle them. 

They are too often turned upon ourselves or used 
on others so maliciously that they react with 
painful consequences. Railroad tracks and prison 
bars are both made of steel. Upon the one we 
speed across a continent ; the other holds a man a 
captive. 

Some men make fetters for themselves out of 
the same conditions that are used by others in 
gaining greater freedom. 

Obstinacy is the mark of a weak will. It asserts 
itself in an emphatic and abnormal way, because 
distrustful of its power. 



Il8 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Continual self-assertion shows a sense of weak- 
ness and a lack of balance. The true spiritual 
will is always confident of its power and is never 
made impatient by delay or hindrances. A fine 
point pierces easily. A sharp edge cuts with very 
little pressure. 

The potencies of will cannot be stated in dy- 
namic terms. They are incalculable. Intelligent 
will is allied with all the occult forces of the uni- 
verse and draws from the universal energies. 

All spiritual dominion is based upon the recog- 
nition of its powers. We do not need continually 
to affirm, "I will breathe;" "I will walk;" "I 
will see." Such assertions would surely indicate 
essential weakness. We easily recognize our free- 
dom and ability to do these things at pleasure. 
When we have no doubt of our capabilities all 
effort is forgotten in their natural expression and 
activity brings satisfaction. We then adjust our- 
selves easily to all conditions and find greater 
delight in employing our strength for the help of 
others than in a careful consideration of our own re- 
quirements. When resentment, grief, or disappoint- 
ment make their demands upon us we choose 
between a selfish indulgence and a wise acceptance 
of the new conditions they involve. In one case 
we find our energies benumbed and paralyzed, 
in the other they are strengthened and developed 
through right action of will. 



WILL. 1 1 9 

We build the sepulchres of our day-dreams. 
We entomb our shattered ideals and weep above 
their graves, or else we gain a clearer understand- 
ing of a life of progress, and with purified purpose 
and larger knowledge build more stately mansions 
for the soul. We enter upon more vigorous life. 
We embark on a fresh voyage of discovery and 
lay our course on a new tack. We find in every 
trouble a friendly fog-bell anchored above some 
reef of which it gives us kindly warning. Its 
tones no longer sound in our ears as moans of our 
wrecked hopes. 

" Executive ability," when it becomes a matter 
of pride, is often the expression of a diseased 
will. 

A normal purpose governs its own life and does 
not needlessly employ itself in directing the activi- 
ties of others. Activity in externals is not infre- 
quently the result and the excuse of spiritual 
indolence. A true life insists upon freedom for all 
and endeavors to protect another from feeling an 
undue influence of its own, in order to make the 
best conditions for development of character. It 
does not wish to dominate, but to free. A desire 
to govern others is invariably the mark of weak- 
ness in self-government. 

Our modern homes are centres of all good things 
in the material life. 

The telephone rings — we respond to the call 



120 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

and listen to the voice of our friend who may be 
a thousand miles away or under the same roof. 

When night comes on we turn the key or press 
the button of an incandescent light, and our apart- 
ments are illuminated as if by magic. 

The day grows cold. We open radiator valves, 
and soon have any degree of heat that we require. 

We are thirsty, and the cool clear water flows 
through our pipes from the far-off spring in the 
hills. 

In all these matters it is our own intelligence 
that discerns our wants and the action of our will 
that opens the sources of supply. 

Our friend would call in vain if we refused to 
listen at the telephone. We could sit all the night 
long in darkness if we did not choose to turn on 
the lights. We might perish of cold or die of 
thirst if we declined to avail ourselves of the chan- 
nels through which heat and water come to us. It 
would make no difference that we were on the cir- 
cuit of the electric current, or that we had steam 
radiators, or that our dwelling was included in the 
water system which supplied our neighbors. The 
voice of our friend would be dumb to us, the lamp 
be dark, the radiator cold, the water-pipes dry, if 
we should elect to have them so. 

These things have their correspondences. We 
can miss of nothing we desire in life, of light, heat, 
power, or song, except as we shut ourselves out 



WILL. 1 2 1 

from it through inactivity of will, as the result of 
indolence or fear. 

Our spiritual abodes lack nothing that we need. 
But it is our will that attracts or drives away the 
pleasant and sweet things of life. 

When we move smoothly through the country 
in a railway journey we do not realize the force 
of the engine that draws us on our way. It is 
only when we are thrown off the track and the 
power is shown in its destructive energy ploughing 
up the ground and tearing its own road-bed that 
we begin to know the possibilities of its momen- 
tum. 

A dynamo carried on the engine could transmit 
a force that would retard the train until the cur- 
rent were turned off. Such is the mental en- 
ergy that guides and urges our life forward. 
When it is misapplied it works incalcuable damage 
through thought currents turned upon itself, arrest- 
ing progress and producing pain. 

We stumble to-day among the ant hills of our 
troubles, and they seem to us like mountains. 
When we have more fully perceived the meaning 
and purpose of existence we will easily stride over 
the mountains of difficulty and they will appear to 
us as ant hills. 

Our higher consciousness is as yet but very im- 
perfectly developed. Even our sense life is in its 
infancy. We are not capable of experiencing 



122 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

pleasure or pain but to a very limited extent be- 
cause of our shallow consciousness. The higher 
the scale of organization the wider is the range 
of its perceptions. 

The sensations of a jelly-fish are doubtless very 
limited. As man grows in refinement he becomes 
constantly capable of deeper suffering or higher 
joy, and with larger capacity of pain and pleasure 
comes a larger power of endurance and control. 

There is no point at which the vibrations of dis- 
tress cannot be changed to satisfaction and glad- 
ness. There is no situation of discomfort possible 
to mortal life that is absolutely beyond remedy. 

Our dominions can be more easily extended 
than we are ready to believe. While we continue 
as dwellers in the kingdom of fear we are fettered. 
But we have manacled ourselves. We can break 
the shackles, cross the borders, and possess our 
own. 

The sovereignty of man is never realized till 
he has become obedient to the spiritual nature 
and vowed allegiance to his higher self, whose 
voice is always calling to him, "Friend, go up 
higher." It is only in such obedience that man 
gains knowledge of the " secret of the Most 
High." 

The feeble flicker of purpose which most men 
designate their "will" is an impulse that is soon 
expended and accomplishes nothing beyond merely 



J FILL. 123 

personal ends. Selfishness dissipates power. It 
scatters energy that, rightly concentrated and 
applied, would bring magnificent results. Egotism 
asserts itself as much in fear as vanity ; as much 
in indolence as activity. Any anxious thought 
related to the personal self shows lack of true 
polarity of mind. 

A sluggish mind refuses to accept a new idea 
that emphasizes personal responsibility, and calls 
for change of habit. Self-indulgence is the greatest 
obstacle to progress. Men do not wish to be 
awakened. They demand a deeper slumber and 
find their opiates in sensuality, until some hour 
of severer suffering arouses them to better things 
in order to escape from pain. 

The law which has produced the pain demands 
their confidence and their complete surrender to 
its remedial action. It insists upon entire willing- 
ness to do or not to do whatever may be neces- 
sary to bring the sufferer into accord with his 
best impulses. He must cease to exert his in- 
genuity and will in building intrenchments of 
excuses behind which to defend himself. There 
is no trouble of body or environment ; no anxiety 
or grief that walls one in without some door of 
escape into the realms of perfect peace. 

Every fresh revelation of science is new demon- 
stration of the marvellous and absolute precision 
of Nature's methods, tending always to perfection 



124 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

of its forms and purposes. We are turning the 
pages of Nature's primers now more rapidly than 
ever before, and find in every line the evidence of 
silent energies of an infinite power. 

The master mind which built the great dome 
of St. Peter's showed itself also in the careful 
detail of form and color on the walls. Every deli- 
cate touch of brush or pencil was as necessary to 
the finished picture as that of the chisel to the 
columns and foundation stones. Muscle alone 
could never have raised this superb masonry. It 
is a monument to mind and will. The mind not 
only designed its architecture, paintings, and sculp- 
ture, but also the machinery which supplemented 
muscle, and made the whole achievement possible 
by raising each stone to its place under the direc- 
tion of the will. 

Imagine a pilgrim throwing his arms about one 
of the columns in the vain delusion that he was 
helping to support the roof! Such egotism we 
would call insanity. It is akin to that which 
prides itself upon its value to mankind in some 
private or public station of temporary responsi- 
bility, and dreams itself a pillar of society or 
church or government. 

Again imagine our pilgrim sleeping in his rags 
amid the beauties of the temple, insensible to all 
the grandeur ! Yet in such lethargy do many 
live so far as thought-life is concerned, and even 



WILL. 125 

think themselves intelligent. The very drowsiness 
of our ragged pilgrim is increased by the incense 
and the organ and the chanting of the choirs, and 
all those things which stir to very ecstasy a nobler 
and more developed mind. 

It would be a very easy matter for Nature with 
her varied energies to put us all in full possession 
of the highest degree of health and opulence. 
The very gentlest application of her forces would 
quickly remove any obstruction in our circulation 
or surroundings. 

And, indeed, she urges all this upon us in every 
possible way, and stands ever waiting patiently for 
our acceptance of her benefits. 

The only power that is sufficient to divert or 
misdirect this energy is man's own mistaken 
thought. It is our privilege to hold ourselves in 
any uncomfortable attitude toward life our regal 
will may choose. We cannot break Nature's 
laws, but we may regulate our private relation to 
them. 

We are like passengers in a railway train or on 
an ocean steamer. The carriage moves smoothly 
upon its rails. The ship sails steadily upon its 
course. The traveller may enjoy the scenes 
through which he passes : the beauty of the land- 
scape or the glory of the waters. He may open 
wide his window and watch all the changing pan- 
orama as he speeds along, or he may draw his 



126 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

blinds and close his eyes, complaining bitterly of 
his surroundings, and inducing the greatest possi- 
ble discomfort, so that the hours pass without 
pleasure or profit. Meanwhile the great engines 
carry him forward and the incidents of the journey 
are of consequence mainly to the traveller himself. 
His mental attitude has not hindered to the least 
degree the regular action of the powerful ma- 
chinery. It has only made his own day miserable 
through infirmity of will. 

When a man is wrecked upon an unknown 
island he goes to work to cultivate the soil and 
make the best of his resources as if the place 
were to be his residence for life. 

Our disappointments and misfortunes often 
strand us where we find no opportunity to sail 
away. Our boats are all destroyed and nothing is 
left but to explore our undiscovered selves. Until 
we are cut off from the distractions of our usual oc- 
cupations and sense lives, it is easy to neglect the 
richest opportunities which lie the closest to our 
hand. We mistake, perhaps, for desert soil that 
which contains the possibilities of largest fruit- 
fulness. 

If we are passing through what seems to be a 
wilderness let us go to work to fertilize a garden 
in the sand. 

It will open to us a new field of spiritual botany 
and give us the satisfaction of discoverers. 



WILL. 127 

It is better always to lose sight of our troubles 
as quickly as possible and let them die through 
neglect than to prolong their lives by careful nurs- 
ing. We can easily find plenty of others if we 
wish at any time to fill their places, for " the woods 
are full of them." 

Some people would be actually lonesome with- 
out the difficulties they have nursed so long and 
carefully. In many cases they are seriously dis- 
turbed if any attempt is made to show them that 
it is not necessary to extend a lengthened hospi- 
tality to trouble. Trouble will leave us when we 
decline to contribute to its support. If it has 
failed to arouse our highest will and only taught 
us lessons of endurance, it has not yet accom- 
plished its full mission. Endurance should not 
be the aim of life. There is a higher gospel. 

We often fancy ourselves spiritual when we are 
only weakly sentimental. Our emotions have 
perhaps been stirred and made us restless in our 
dream life. We have not been awakened to posi- 
tive action, or the perception of real principle. 

There are many " castles in Spain " which are 
patterned after metaphysical architecture. There 
are many who call themselves seekers after truth 
who are only following new lines of amusement 
without serious purpose. 

The day will come to all of us when our work 
will be tried by fire and flood, and even Calvinistic 



128 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

hells may then seem mildly picturesque compared 
with the experiences through which we pass. 
When, after the storm, the day star has arisen 
above our horizon we may know that the night is 
really gone and the shadows can never again be 
quite as heavy as those that lie behind us. What- 
ever difficulties may henceforth await us, we will 
at least have daylight on our path. 

The morning always brings strength and confi- 
dence, and we have seen the dawn. 

Every athlete knows that it is the position that 
is oftenest taken that comes at last to be the easiest. 
In the higher training of the will we prove the 
same thing to be true. The constant holding of 
the best ideals results at last in their complete 
expression. 

Every climb we make brings us to a point of 
greater elevation where we command a larger view 
with increased power to control conditions. If there 
is an uphill upon one part of the road we know that 
there is surely a down grade on the other side. 

This is the compensating law of difficulty. Turn 
down this page, discouraged one, and close the 
book. Dwell awhile upon this truth, for much 
depends upon our recognition of it. It is a suffi- 
cient lesson for a day and night. 

To-morrow will bring a keener appetite and 
larger vision if this simple proposition has been 
truly learned. We can cheerfully climb the hill 



WILL. 1 29 

to-day with the full assurance that to-morrow we 
shall find the level. To-day we need this training 
of the will in the ascent of the hill of difficulty. 
We will patiently cut our footsteps in the icy pass, 
if need be, like the Alpine traveller, and with a brave 
smile on our faces we will go sturdily forward and 
not frighten ourselves by looking into the dizzy 
depths below. In the gloom it seems as if there 
were lions in our path, and by the uncertain light 
we do not see that they are chained. 

If we are called to wrestle with them we will 
find that man in his divinity is far superior to 
mere brute force. We are here to learn to over- 
come, and this is our opportunity. To the victor 
will belong the strength of the slain. We will not 
flinch in the face of seeming danger, and often we 
will discover that it was only our fears that were 
confronting us. 

A gamester does not spend his time regretting 
the hand that he held yesterday. He makes the 
best play he can with the cards that he holds 
to-day, and so in every game learns greater skill. 
How idle is it for us to weaken the will with 
sorrow for our yesterdays ! The game of life 
demands our best attention for to-day and the 
full exercise of all our powers. To-morrow 
doubtless will bring opportunities of its own for 
which we must now develop skill that we may 
be prepared to meet them. Let us give all our 



130 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

thought to the game in hand, though it be only a 
waiting game. 

We need not for one instant entertain the 
thought that we have been forgotten among the 
players. We have our special score to play. 
None other can do it for us. Why not study well 
the cards we hold and lay them down with confi- 
dence and equanimity? There is sure sometime 
to be another deal. In the next cut we will get 
a better hand if we have proved ourselves entitled 
to it. Meanwhile the greatest skill may be shown 
by him who does not hold the highest cards. 

It is the man of trained and fearless will that 
wins the honors in the game of life, although 
his real success may not be known to men. 
Strength of will is shown as much in renunciation 
as in conquest. The greatest victory is often in 
the yielding. 

Thought-life is of higher importance than con- 
duct. When we have gained control of thought 
right action is a consequence. We often dwell 
too much upon the matter of conduct and too little 
upon the mental cause behind it. When the will 
has been purified and strengthened the impulses 
will be symmetrical and true. 

A wise man never quarrels with his troubles. 
Such indulgence will intensify and prolong the 
difficulty. All impatience proves the need of 
suffering. 



WILL. I 3 I 

Nature readily responds to every mood with 
which we greet her. 

The heavens seem as brass to us when we look 
up to them with despair, or as the gates of Para- 
dise when our feeling is one of gladness. 

Dynamite and giant powder may be handled 
without suspicion of the fact that they are power- 
ful explosives. There is nothing in their appear- 
ance to suggest their force or use. Under certain 
conditions they are wholly ineffective and may 
remain for years without indication of their latent 
power. 

No chemical compound can compare with the 
energy of the will that brought its elements to- 
gether. There is no conceivable ideal of power 
which the human mind cannot express. There is 
no such thing as " physical weakness " or " muscular 
force," as an eminent Harvard physicist has lately 
said. All power is expressed first through mind. 
All life is robust. Every man is stalwart. This 
is realized to just the degree in which we take 
our personal conceits " out of the paths of the 
divine circuits." 

We demand continually that our senses shall 
be gratified with " demonstration," and all the 
time the soul is showing its power in the tran- 
quil waiting to which we have compelled it, for it 
knows that in reality a thousand years are as a 
single day. 



132 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

God is always at our service. The divine cir- 
cuits flow perpetually. The path of life is always 
open and hides no obstacles nor hindrances. It is 
due to our distorted vision that we see " giants 
in Canaan," and in their sight we think we are as 
grasshoppers. 

Disease is the result of hypnotism — the hypno- 
tism of an idea imposed by one's own thought 
— auto-suggestion — or transmitted to it through 
the mind of another. This is true of any condition 
that holds us in bondage. Absolute freedom is our 
birthright. No one can deprive us of it without 
our consent, although we may have given it un- 
consciously. 

We can throw off any undesirable condition 
when we have recognized the truth that we possess 
intelligence and power sufficient for all our needs. 
When we set the will in motion it will find effect- 
ual relief. But often we make it necessary that 
we should be stripped of all other possessions be- 
fore we enter into self-possession. 

It is a curious fact of hypnotism that the subject 
is generally deaf to all sounds but the voice of the 
operator who controls him. 

A cannon fired close to the ear would not be 
noticed in the hypnotic trance if the operator chose 
to close the sense of hearing. Nevertheless, from 
out the silence at the same command the subject 
fancies that he hears sweet music, and he obeys 



WILL. 133 

readily the slightest whisper of the one who holds 
his senses captive. Bat even in hypnotism the will 
must first consent before it can be fettered, for if 
it once asserts its power none other can control it. 

All impatience is an expression of fear. It is 
the mark of a defective will that has not gained 
self-control. "I am afraid" is a false note that 
we use daily on the most trivial occasions. 

It is easy to exaggerate our troubles. An 
unwelcome demand is made upon our time. It 
may be a very modest and reluctant appeal, but 
to our inflamed mental vision it appears as a robber 
standing in our path demanding money or life. 
The few minutes or hours which would easily 
suffice for the required service seem a most un- 
pleasant interruption to our usual and more de- 
sired occupations. 

A call is made upon our purse. We know at 
heart that we should view it as a privilege to make 
a prompt and glad response. 

Our sense of duty will not permit us, perhaps, to 
pass it by, and we bestow a petty contribution 
grudgingly. Through failure of the will to obey 
its highest impulse the action has flowered without 
fragrance. We have robbed ourselves of spiritual 
enjoyment and missed an opportunity of growth. 

How long shall we continue to indulge our 
lower nature and foster the delusions of loss and 
trouble for which we ourselves are responsible ? 



134 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

The flagellants of eastern countries, who torture 
themselves with the lash in their fanaticism, are no 
more cruel to their tender flesh than we in our 
impatience to the suffering soul. We worship 
our own selfishness with every hour of self pity. 
Note the action of the law of retributive justice. 
When we have been crippled by illness, we remem- 
ber in our helplessness that in our robust health 
we were parsimonious of time. When we have be- 
come bankrupt in purse, we recall many a timid 
appeal to which we wish we had given a more 
ready ear. 

Thus we expiate our selfishness, compelled to 
listen to petitions we are powerless to answer, or 
to make appeals ourselves, in our own agony of 
need, from which others turn away. 

It is necessary that each should get his lessons 
in the way that he himself shall choose. It often 
seems to us that some beloved one is choosing 
painful ways, but true love shows itself in a wise 
silence quite as often as in interference. It does 
not seek to control the attitude of others toward 
itself. It concerns itself only with its mental atti- 
tude toward others. 

We should detach ourselves from the engross- 
ing thought of self. It is of no less importance 
that we detach ourselves from the engrossing 
thought of others. We are bound alike by our 
affections and aversions. Too great intensity of 



WILL. 1 3 5 

thought will cramp and hinder us. Our affec- 
tions should be widened and enlarged. As they 
become ennobled they grow less personal and eager. 
They bring more satisfaction and less suffering. 

Aversions should be altogether rooted out, for 
only our baser nature feeds on them, and they 
bring nothing but perplexity and sorrow. They 
have chain us to the things we most dislike, till we 
learned our lesson of indifference and patience. 

The disciple who seeks peace and power must 
climb above the plane of personality, beyond the 
surf of sensational life that breaks like turbulent 
billows on the shore laden with wreckage and 
debris. 

If we recognize love as the real force of will 
we will apply it oftener in our social and do- 
mestic difficulties. It will save us from much 
useless ''kicking against the pricks" which we 
compel ourselves to suffer through our wilfulness. 
Love is never a goad. It is a vigorous tonic 
which corrects the circulation without leaving 
regret or lethargy behind. We need to remind 
ourselves sometimes that " love is not easily pro- 
voked," and that our friend who has erred is in 
greater need of true affection than before. 

His error may alter our external relation to him, 
but if our love is really faithful it will guide us 
wisely, and enable us to give the silent help which 
only a loving will can render. Instead of striving 



136 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

to correct the outward manner of another, if we 
but hold a steady confidence in his spiritual nature 
we will find that, though the wonderful harp of a 
thousand strings be dumb to every other touch, 
it will awaken to the touch of love. 

A truly forceful will is always gentle, though it 
carries a strong hand. Goodness and weakness 
do not belong together. Real righteousness is 
vigorous. It is not necessary to drop our own 
eyelids because our neighbor squints, or to go 
lame ourselves because he is a cripple. 

Wise charity is never blind. It never lowers its 
standards, to adjust them to the weakness of another. 
The higher will is vitalized through love. Love 
makes no compromise with weakness, but demands 
that we shall rise to our full height. Love is not 
blind nor feeble. A loving will is truly masterful, 
but " seeketh not its own." 



There is no habit strong enough to dominate a 
man against his will. 



WILL. 137 



All forces make us suffer till we conquer them. 
Then they become our willing and obedient 
servants. When we work with certitude instead 
of hope we always arrive at positive results. 



138 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



We attract to ourselves whatever influences we 
choose. 

Thus we fasten clogs upon our feet, or grow the 
feathers for our wings. 



THE E VOL UTION OF PO IVER. 1 3 9 

VII. 

THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. 

That power which the disciple shall covet is that which 
shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men. — 
" Light on the Path:" 

Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and 
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing 
shall by any means hurt you. — Jesus. 

POWER is the natural desire and instinct of 
humanity and the chief attribute of all its Deities, 

It is evolved only through the awakening of 
the soul. This attainment seems to be the pur- 
pose of existence on the earth plane. All our 
occupations aim at increase of personal power. 
Men do not really care for the baubles of wealth, 
fame, and position except as they find in them 
expression of their interior forces or aids in their 
development. 

It is power that they seek to acquire and 
manifest. 

The consciousness of power is the greatest de- 
light of man. Its evolution is his greatest joy. 
Whether he work in the laboratory or the ma- 
chine shop, at the crucible or the bench, his 
efforts are always for the mastery of the prin- 
ciples of nature, that he may use them in the 
execution of this purpose. 



140 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Little by little the race is gaining knowledge of 
the invisible forces that surround it, and learning to 
harness them to its will. We construct more pow- 
erful engines ; we generate stronger currents of 
electricity. We are learning to overcome the 
waste of power in boilers and batteries and to direct 
their energies with greater precision. As we 
advance in these fields our horizon broadens and 
we discover continually finer elements of subtler 
force. We find we are but in the alphabet of 
dynamics. Every fresh discovery emphasizes the 
significance and value of the will. Its training is 
the most important work of life. 

Everything that works in the least degree to 
neutralize or weaken it we should put ruthlessly 
away from us. All unworthy self-indulgence is 
suicidal; all mental indolence tends to devitalize 
the will ; all fear paralyzes it. 

Fear is the greatest enemy of power. When 
we cling to our fears they submerge our lives. 

We have only to let them go to prove the buoy- 
ancy of nature which carries us immediately to 
light and air again and shows us the right course 
of action. When we know that we embody and 
express the power of the infinite to the extent 
of our realization we no longer waste our time 
in supplication, but we seek development. The 
ignorant savage implores his deity to save him 
from the fury of an electric storm. The intelli- 



THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. 141 

gent man protects himself by putting a lightning- 
rod upon his house. As we enlarge the province 
of the will through knowledge we narrow the 
domain of prayer. When we learn our power to 
control the forces amid which we live we are no 
longer suppliants and worshippers. The more a 
man commands the less he prays. The more he 
indulges his indolence of will the more prayerful 
he becomes. Jesus did not pray in the storm on 
Galilee. He awoke and commanded the winds 
and waves. It was only when he had become 
negative through suffering that he implored that 
the cup of sorrow might pass from him. Yet even 
in that hour he radiated force that threw to the 
ground the soldiers sent to arrest him and proved 
that he had power to lay down the life which no 
man could take from him without his consent. 

We often shirk the responsibility of deciding 
our own lives and lay too much stress upon appar- 
ent " leadings." 

It is our privilege to determine what we want 
to do with life, and every real decision opens a 
way to action. There is a large domain in which 
we should seize and hold with a firm grasp the 
reins of government. 

In this realm the prayer of supplication is 
impertinence. We need to rule and not to beg. 
The forces that we govern are best developed 
through obedience to our will. 



142 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

There is another field in which we ourselves 
should learn obedience. In this we gain develop- 
ment through service of our higher self and more 
advanced intelligences than our own. 

Thus upon one side of life we need to be 
positive and govern. Upon the other side we 
should be negative and obey. We are not suffi- 
ciently clear in our discernment. We often obey 
where we ought to command, and we sometimes 
command where we ought to obey. 

We must know our power and apply it. 

I had an opportunity many years ago of observ- 
ing at close range the practical operation of these 
principles. The Asiatic cholera broke out in a 
ship in which I was crossing the Atlantic. Many 
of the passengers were terror-stricken. They began 
to pray — and died. The captain was profane and 
forceful. He fumigated the ship — and lived. His 
only time of danger was when, for a few days, 
under the pressure of fear, he too became prayer- 
ful. But his strong trained will asserted itself and 
his pious mood soon proved to be intermittent. 
It was a passing phase of weakness. 

His profanity was but the customary expression 
of his impulsive nature, open to objection on the 
grounds of taste, but still an evidence of innate 
energy in which lay his salvation from the danger 
of the hour. Realization of divine energy does not 
make of us weak petitioners. 



THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. 1 43 

In the evolution of power we must dismiss all 
anxious thought of how we appear to others. 

Loyalty to our own convictions demands of us 
that we should not entertain an artificial desire to 
please or live according to other standards than 
our own. 

We must choose, in every relation, whether we 
shall rule or serve. Where we choose rightly we 
gain power. Wherein we err we suffer loss. 
Sensitiveness to criticism is evidence of infirmity 
of purpose. It springs from selfishness and shows 
a lack of self-reliance. It is often disguised as 
conscientiousness, but is always a mark of egotism 
and vanity. 

All self-consciousness is selfishness. It is pecu- 
liarly characteristic of what is called a critical mind. 

The problem of the individual life is not pri- 
marily how to do the most good to others : it 
is how to unfold and rule itself. In this proc- 
ess one evolves the power which proves help- 
ful. Service is the best school of development. 
Helpfulness to others is an instinct of human- 
ity. 

If one falls in the street, how many hands are 
impulsively extended to lift him to his feet ! 

If a horse finds his load beyond his strength, 
how quickly passers-by will put their willing 
shoulders to the wheel ! 

If property is mislaid or lost it becomes at once 



144 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

the self-imposed mission of others to recover and 
restore it to its rightful owners. 

If one gains for himself new knowledge, how 
naturally he seeks those to whom he can communi- 
cate it ! 

All service is privileged opportunity, which 
gives us exercise for our growing faculties. 

Every man possesses a universe of his own. 

The human being conforms marvellously in its 
essential construction and movements to the planet 
and the planetary system. It has its vital centres, 
each with its own radius. It combines the ele- 
ments of earth, air, fire, and water, which permeate 
all its life. It has its miniature oceans, continents, 
and rivers, its fruitful and waste places. The 
base of existence is the atom, molecule, and single 
cell. Every atom doubtless has its own intelli- 
gence and purpose. It is combined with conscious 
life, unrecognized, perhaps, by the central mind, 
and classified as the subconscious self, which only 
means the unexplored. 

To bring into harmony and obedience to our 
own supreme will all this atomic life is to win the 
kingdom we were born to rule. To carry our 
highest spiritual consciousness into these subordi- 
nate realms is a task worthy our attention through 
many successive periods of embodiment. Millions 
of entities unrecognized by material science await 
unfoldment through the human relations which 



THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. 145 

make us their masters. They are the squires of 
our knighthood. It is their delight to serve us. 

We are but larger atoms of a higher organiza- 
tion, as our planet is but one globe of a system 
that itself revolves around the central sun of a 
larger universe. 

We are as blood corpuscles of a grand universal 
man. The organization of life is perfect. Every 
atom is rightly placed. 

Before our work in the flesh can be complete, 
we must control all processes of nature and master 
death itself. 

We have not yet mapped out our heavens ; we 
have not explored our continents ; we have not 
fathomed our oceans. We do not understand our 
resources. Science has found an energy of five 
hundred horse power in a cubic inch of space. We 
cannot imagine limits of the power contained in 
human brain and body. 

We find ourselves flushed or chilled by sudden 
thought. Why not govern our temperature at will, 
and learn the secret of adapting ourselves to all 
atmospheres without depending upon fuel to pro- 
duce the heat or ice the coolness we require? 

Through spiritual intelligence alone comes the 
development of perceptions which pierce the fogs 
of materialism and reveal the broad range of 
human possibilities. Spiritual wisdom makes us 
seers and puts us in command of Nature's forces, 



146 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

making possible the best results upon all planes of 
action. 

It is one of the theories of evolutionists that the 
discovery of a need by the animal has been in- 
variably followed by the development of the 
organ required to supply it; that the organic and 
sense life has been a matter of slow growth through 
recognition of the necessities in its environment. 

Thus we see that organized life has come through 
mind. 

Is it then so difficult to believe that the force 
that has constructed should control and maintain 
the organs it has provided, and even replace them 
at need? We find that some of the lower animals 
possess this power of rehabilitation. In mental sci- 
ence it is apparent every day that organic disease 
is as readily relieved as nervous disturbance, and 
chronic troubles yield as easily as acute disorders 
without regard to the length of time they have 
prevailed, or to the advanced age of the sufferer. 

If life or anything related to it is a gift, what be- 
comes of the theory of evolution? Is it not a rea- 
sonable belief that what is true of the plant is true 
of man, and life is growth from seed to fruit in oft- 
repeated and every varying incarnations ? Where 
is the gift to vegetable life but the soil and sun- 
light in which they grow ? — and even these they 
have appropriated for themselves through the law 
of vibratory affinity. 



THE EVOLUTION OE POWER. 1 47 

The rose and the chrysanthemum have required 
many reembodiments to bring them to their pres- 
ent size and great variety of tint, and each has pre- 
pared the way for that which followed. 

All evolution is an awakening to higher reali- 
zation. The new perception demands expression 
and creates new forms for its use. 

Discovery, desire, and development are the suc- 
cessive steps of progress. 

It is recognition and not time that is the essen- 
tial element of growth. This is the healing prin- 
ciple which brings improved conditions in the body 
and control of the surroundings. 

There is no suffering from want or weakness but 
that which comes from lack of understanding. 

What more could we ask for our happiness 
than the knowledge that we are creators and sov- 
ereigns? 

We have only to take possession, and all the 
universe proclaims, " Long live the king!" 

It is ours to choose whether we will be subjected 
to the action of the law of material gravitation 
which draws downward or to that of spiritual 
levitation which draws upward. Not only do we 
elect but we operate these laws in our own being. 
Trouble cannot be kept away when we persistently 
attract it; nor can prosperity, nor health, nor 
happiness. 

No sense of disappointment is ever possible to 



148 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

him who has attuned himself to the true keynote 
of existence. 
.Selfishness is the heart failure of our spiritual life. 

Thoughts which spring from personality and re- 
late to that alone inevitably obstruct the spiritual 
vision. 

Until we have purged ourselves from every form 
of personal selfishness we cannot become channels 
for the free and unimpeded flow of universal good 
and wisdom. 

The freedom which we gain from truth is free- 
dom from all care of self — the loosing of our 
bonds of egotism. Purification of character comes 
through the experiences which seem to scorch and 
blister in their intensity of suffering. They are 
deeply grievous in the present hour. All smelt- 
ing and refining of ores and all chemical distilla- 
tion require concentration of heat. The furnace 
and the crucible must be raised to the highest 
degree of power. 

Gethsemane and the " Via Dolorosa " precede 
Calvary. Afterward comes the resurrection, and 
after resurrection ascension. Let us remember 
in our trial the " Nevertheless, afterward," when 
the peaceable fruit of righteousness is ripened. 
Our angels are always with us in the wilderness, 
and though we may be isolated for the moment 
and endure the dreary sense of loneliness and deso- 
lation we will be comforted abundantly. 



THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. 1 49 

Before we are fully crucified our sorrows have 
pierced hands and feet, head and heart. We can 
no longer go whither we would. We cannot reach 
for what we want. We wear the crown of thorns 
and from our wounded side flow the life currents. 
Thus bruised and sore we learn the lesson of love, 
learn to receive and learn to give. We no longer 
selfishly desire to accumulate and to hold. We are 
willing to let go without reserve, trusting to the 
influx of the superabundant life into which we 
enter through the spiritual birth. 

The personal man exists no longer, but from his 
sepulchre the stone is rolled away and the higher 
self steps forth as master of all conditions of exist- 
ence, which can never bring him hurt or hindrance. 

In the darkest hour of the crucifixion we hear 
the old-time challenge : " He saved others, him- 
self he cannot save. Let him now come down 
from the cross and we will believe in him." 

Stretched upon our cruel cross of poverty or 
illness from which we have not yet found deliver- 
ance, is it necessary that this last thorn should 
be pressed upon the brow, this last nail driven 
through the helpless limbs, this last drop drained 
from the cup of suffering? And yet the challenge 
is a just one. 

It will be fully met and answered. But Calvary 
must needs be first. It lies in every path to a 
true throne. 



150 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

One does not " come down " from a cross. He 
mounts upon it as a stepping-stone to higher 
things, careless whether others believe on him or 
not, so long as he finds the way of light. 

It is only through the baptism of pain that we 
become the helpers of troubled ones — only 
through drinking of this cup that we share in the 
redemption of the world. 

We shall be entering soon upon a new century. 
It opens an era of new thought. 

We are drawing scattered forces to a focus. 
We are killing out the sense of separateness in 
human life and studying with more profound 
interest the problem of unity. The development 
of individuality goes hand in hand with deeper 
consciousness of universal sympathies. In all the 
arts and sciences, in mechanics and in literature, we 
seek simplicity and fundamental principles, indiffer- 
ent to the destruction of time-honored theories and 
ignorant beliefs. 

The religious teachers of the past have drawn 
sharp lines of distinction between God and man, 
time and eternity. They have talked of the 
"saved" and the " lost," the " Christian" and the 
" heathen," the " here " and the " hereafter.'' 
They have localized heaven and hell, separated 
soul from body, spirit from matter, the universal 
from the particular. Life was considered as some- 
thing quite apart from death. Minerals, vege- 



THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. 151 

tables, and " dumb beasts " had no share in the 
intelligence and soul-life of the human being. 

Let us glance at some of the changes wrought 
in spiritual chemistry through the propositions of 
new thought : 

Humanity is itself divine. 

All men are the sons of God. 

Time and eternity are one. 

Heaven and hell are ever present with us as 
mental experiences. 

All life is sacred. All days and occupations are 
holy when governed by loving purpose. 

" Death does not differ at all from life," as was 
taught by Thales six centuries before the Christian 
era. 

One life pervades all kingdoms, varying only in 
degree of unfoldment, and continually progressing 
in all toward higher types. 

In one of the art galleries of the city are two 
paintings called " The Old Navy and the New." 

One is a picture of the frigate " Constitution," 
the other of the battleship " Massachusetts " — 
showing something of the changes made in naval 
vessels since the early part of the century. The 
points of contrast offer an illustration of the changed 
thought of the present day. 

The name of the new ship is individualized. 
The bulk is reduced from the old model. The 
great spread of canvas has disappeared. 



152 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

The dimensions are altered, and every line is 
one of grace and beauty. 

The hull is steel, the driving power steam and 
electricity. Speed has been greatly increased. 

The port holes are much smaller, and the guns 
of finer calibre, while more effective in their range 
and power, and far beyond the boldest expecta- 
tions in the gunnery of a hundred years ago. 

In the interior furnishings the incandescent 
lamp has taken the place of sperm oil. All the 
nautical appliances show the great advance of 
science. 

The food and clothes of sailors and marines are 
of a quality unknown to those who manned the 
" Constitution." The standard requirements of the 
officers are much higher than those of former 
days. 

With all these changes we find the same ensign 
at the peak, and pennant at the fore, but the starry 
field shows a larger and grander union of States 
than was included in the plans of the early pa- 
triots. 

There is not much in common between the hut 
of the Congo African and the palace of a merchant 
prince of the Western world. They both have 
roof and walls, with the simple object of a shelter. 
In very similar relations stand the old and new 
thoughts of God. 

The materials and the architecture are unlike, 



THE EVOLUTION OE POWER. I 53 

but both are based on the idea of a protecting 
power. 

In the material existence we get only a glimpse 
of the eternal verities, and often fail to understand 
the connection with the present day between what 
has gone before and that which follows. 

It is impossible to make an extreme statement 
of any truth, for the reason that our highest con- 
ception must fall far short of the reality. 

We cannot overestimate the power or benevo- 
lence of the forces amid which we are developing 
our spiritual nature. 

In our fear of being thought " visionary " we are 
in danger of digging our ground anchors so deep 
into the earth that we will be held captive to 
the material life. Is it any wonder that when our 
cables have been cut or broken through some 
sobering experience we sometimes drift away into 
the clouds forgetful of the attractions that once 
absorbed us? Is it strange that in our unfamiliarity 
with the regions of higher thought we sometimes 
become bewildered and seem to hang betwixt 
two worlds, unwilling to return to the old levels, 
yet ignorant of the way to pierce the clouds and 
rise into the clearer atmosphere beyond? Perhaps 
there are few disciples of new thought that have 
not at some point of their progress found them- 
selves in such perplexity. 

The only escape from the dilemma is to go 



154 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

still higher to where a brighter outlook will be 
found. 

Pleasure or power is the choice presented to 
us. Our greatest obstacles are indolence and fear. 

We allow ourselves to be deluded with the 
thought that our necessities on the material or in- 
tellectual plane make spiritual activity impossible 
and excuse us from all responsibility for poverty 
in better things. How easy to throw the blame on 
" circumstances " ! 

Power comes only through entire obedience to 
the highest law with which we are familiar. While 
we fulfil the law of love in all our thoughts and 
actions we cannot fail to grow. Nothing but an 
unloving life can hinder us. 

We are not suffering from inability or lack of 
knowledge, but from failure of purpose. The 
weakest individual has more knowledge and power 
than he ever applies to use. As we enlarge ex- 
pression we open new vistas of truth. The highest 
force is not unattainable because of our being 
human, but because our selfishness would make it 
dangerous to ourselves and others. We are sus- 
picious of what we do not understand. This is 
why the possession of spiritual power makes one 
appear as nothing in the eyes of men. The true 
disciple does not turn bread into stone and multiply 
loaves and fishes for his material gratification or 
to satisfy the curiosity of the multitude, hence he 



THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. I 55 

is regarded with dislike. He lives a life apart from 
the contentions of the market and the forum, but 
deals with forces that would easily govern both. 

Power over power is what Jesus promised to his 
followers. Such comes only to the man who has 
completely mastered himself, and its possessor 
is invincible. 

When we understand love as a force and not a 
weakness, we find in it the very key to everlasting 
power. Nothing can successfully oppose us when 
we have identified ourselves with the Supreme 
Love. Self-lOve is an inverted force, and becomes 
destructive. It is the impulse in all suicide and 
crime. Infinite goodness cannot play the tyrant, 
even to save us from ourselves. 

Mental causes seem remote and insufficient to 
produce results from which we suffer. But when 
we have acquainted ourselves with the laws of 
thought, we are often able to trace their action 
more clearly than that of drugs in chemistry. 

Every evil feeds upon antagonism. Men are 
constantly inciting one another to resistance and 
attack. These are the most expensive methods 
we could possibly devise for the attainment of our 
ends. We cannot exterminate an evil or solve 
a social difficulty by a set of resolutions spread 
upon the records of a reform society. We cannot 
overcome a habit by mere resolve. 

When we have really recognized truth it sets us 



156 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

free. When we have begun to radiate love, 
those things which seemed impregnable disintegrate 
like the hard rock of refractory ores placed in the 
chemical vats of the reduction works. When we 
begin to " live the life " we find that our candle 
" gives light to all that are in the house," and will 
not be hid in a secret place. Our power asserts 
itself in all our relations to others. It vitalizes 
everything we touch, but produces no elation or 
vain-glory. We accept all results as evidence of 
the accuracy of the principles with which we are 
learning to work. The cancer of self-love is 
healed. With all our heart, and strength, and 
soul, and mind, we love the higher good. Fresh 
life flows through our veins, and we begin to 
realize that for which we have vainly sought so 
long. 

Love easily loosens all our bonds. There is no 
discomfort that will not yield to its sovereign power. 

The sun compels the traveller to lay aside the 
cloak that wind and storm have failed to take from 
his grasp. 

When experience flings its javelins at us in life's 
turmoil, we often strike the sweetest chords upon 
our harps. When we sit in the seat of satisfied 
desire, ease and comfort bring us lethargy. 

If pain is rightly understood it teaches us the 
deeper, stronger possibilities of humanity, but if 
we were not so blind to the advantages we possess 



THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. I 57 

we would not need the friendly offices of pain to 
arouse us to sight and action. 

A stagnant pool does not clearly reflect the 
stars and neither does troubled water. Power 
does not dwell in anxious minds. 

When we have put away all eagerness and 
learned the lesson of true confidence, we are in 
training for high achievement. It is no reason for 
discouragement if old habits of mind return at 
times like the retreating tides. 

As we watch the ebbing waters an occasional 
wave will roll back so far as to make us feel un- 
certain of its outward movement, while the flood 
tide often seems to the watcher to be receding. 

So do our thought impulses appear to move us 
in directions we have not sought, and hold us from 
the lines on which we most desire to advance. 

Outside the caverns of mystery, in which we 
search for truth, lies sunlight that would blind 
our mortal eyes ; while within, the occasional 
flash of our torches on a crystal, or the phospho- 
rescence of a drop of water, seems to us a blaze 
of glory, and the pebbles in our path appear as 
treasures beyond price. 

The day will come when we will dare to claim the 
full power that belongs to us, and realize that we 
are limitless indeed, and, as Walt Whitman says, are 
not contained between our hats and our boot-soles. 



158 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



Poverty and disease are not the expressions of 
righteousness. 

They do not reflect the true image and likeness 
of God. 



THE EVOLUTION OF POWER. 159 



Great spiritual potencies are born from great 
emergencies. 

Nature does not waste her highest impulses 
on trivial occasions. 

We get the greatest force from our severest 
trials. 

It does not come from mere endurance, but from 
a bold and steadfast attitude which has no thought 
of yielding. 



l6o DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



The way of peace is the way of power. 

It brings us to repose without lethargy, activity 
without effort, love without anxiety, and joy with- 
out reaction. 



DECISION i6l 



VIII. 

DECISION. 

The first step in occultism brings the student to the tree 
of knowledge. 

He must pluck and eat. He must choose. 

No longer is he capable of the indecision of ignorance. 



In a history of the development of the Cripple 
Creek gold mines it is related that experts of wide 
reputation in the mining world and with large 
experience upon five continents pronounced the 
deposits superficial. It is significantly added, " It 
was this uncertainty that delayed development." 

It was finally the men of brawn and muscle who 
proved to the world that underneath the grass- 
roots lay fabulous riches. 

At greater depth the district was shown to be all 
that the most sanguine had anticipated. 

Deep mining then became the factor. The 
veins were absolutely without number and of every 
conceivable course and dip. Often the miner who 
goes to search for the extension of a rich vein 
finds an entirely new vein instead. 

It was the patient toilers who had worked with 
confidence and decision, unaffected by the doubts 
of those about them and undismayed by their own 



1 62 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

difficulties, that finally brought to light the richest 
gold mines of the century. 

In the development of man's higher nature we 
find it also true that only he who works with the 
patient confidence of a fully decided purpose ever 
attains to power — and in the end he too discovers 
fabulous riches with deep mining in the spiritual 
nature. 

These things are not disclosed to fearful, timid 
souls, nor to the indolent and self-indulgent. 

When we begin to change our thought and 
interests from material to spiritual things, it is 
important that we should commit ourselves fully 
and promptly to the new direction of our lives. 
Half-hearted measures always result in confusion 
and failure and delay development. 

Upon the material plane we may achieve mate- 
rial success. Upon the spiritual plane we can 
accomplish a spiritual success, but when we are 
distracted by diverse impulses and torn by con- 
trary incentives we find ourselves suspended mid- 
way between mind and matter, and in a sense 
divorced from both. There is no middle ground 
that we can safely occupy. 

We must " drink deep or taste not the Pierian 
spring." One of the greatest dangers to success 
and happiness upon all lines of human activity is 
that of indecision. This is the reef upon which 
so many of our ventures go to pieces. The princi- 



DECISION. 163 

pal dangers of the navigator are encountered on 
the coast. The perils of the open sea are small 
compared with those of the rocky shore and sandy 
beach. It is there that we need to build our light- 
houses and anchor our light-ships. The life-boats 
are oftenest overturned in pushing through the surf. 

It is just here that we encounter our most serious 
difficulties in the study of thought principles. 

We are reluctant to leave our material shores and 
trust ourselves to the operation of the universal 
laws. We are not quite ready to apply the truth 
to our particular life. We are not accustomed to 
the larger horizon and deep-water navigation. We 
have never seen the spiritual principle fully demon- 
strated, perhaps, and the scepticism of our practi- 
cal minds makes us reluctant for the venture. 

Yesterday I stood upon the curb and watched 
the fire-engines as they dashed up-street in re- 
sponse to an alarm. 

The glad activity of men and horses was superb. 
There was no trace of indecision. At the first tap 
of the bell every one had sprung confidently to his 
post. The fires were kindled without delay. The 
steam was speedily ready for its work. The ani- 
mals and their drivers knew exactly what was 
wanted of them. Each understood his part and 
brought immediately into play his largest energies 
without an instant's hesitation. In this spirit we 
should commit ourselves to our daily living, re- 



1 64 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

sponding not only promptly but gladly to every 
responsibility that summons us. We should be as 
ready to move in one direction as another, to accept 
without hesitation every opportunity that presents 
itself, and to do this without dissatisfaction when 
the circumstances are not what we would choose. 

Nothing that we do in life is complete and per- 
manent. Everything is preliminary to something 
better, a preparation for something more endur- 
ing. We go " from strength to strength," advanc- 
ing evermore toward our ideal perfection. And 
as we move, our ideal grows, providing us with an 
ever fresh impulse. 

Every day we are developing new conditions of 
ultimate success. Not only that, but every day 
is in itself successful even though no progress is 
apparent. Our simple effort has at least developed 
wind and muscle, making us stronger than yester- 
day, and better equipped for the work at which we 
aim. If we indulge ourselves in tragic moods and 
moments of despondency and doubt, we only in- 
crease and complicate our tasks. We dull the axe 
with which we hew, and thus compel ourselves to 
put forth more strength. It is absolutely necessary 
to the highest success that we rid ourselves of the 
fever of impatience and throw off the disease of 
indecision and uncertainty. All the world suffers 
from a mental " grippe " for want of real belief in 
the absolute good. 



DECISION. 165 

Persistent confidence is the first requisite in any- 
undertaking if we wish to arrive at positive results 
— confidence that is in no way weakened by a 
seeming failure or by days or months or years of 
disappointment. Such confidence makes delays 
and disappointments quite unnecessary if it is 
prepared to stand these tests. 

It accepts as a finality, established beyond the 
need of further proof, the axiom that " All things 
work together for good." This is the meaning of 
true fearlessness. It believes that " the universe 
is for nothing else than to succeed in." It does 
not measure success by the day's record. It has 
higher standards than the mere accomplishment 
of its own trivial purposes. It knows that all 
merely personal ends are petty, even though they 
be the building of cities or the civilization of con- 
tinents. Nothing is worthy the powers and stature 
of a man but the fulfilment of his divinest being, 
the unfoldment of his largest spiritual manhood. 

Power always destroys itself and us when we 
use it with no other than a selfish aim. It can be 
developed and extended to the highest degree 
only when our purpose is in accord with that of 
the universal life. This is not gained by the be- 
littling of our daily occupations or the neglect of 
simple duties and homely opportunities. Nor is it 
reached by the exaggeration of them. 

It is only in the recognition and adjustment of 



1 66 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

our real relation to every person, place, and cir- 
cumstance with which we are brought in con- 
tact. 

It is in confidence and decision that we develop 
power. 

Fanaticism is more forceful than agnosticism, 
because it has a distinct and decided purpose 
without a doubt of its accomplishment. 

The history of bigots is a wonderful testimony 
to the power of confident belief and unselfish 
aims. 

Indecision is a fatal disease wherever it appears. 
It seems less hurtful to progress to be decided in 
a wrong course than to remain undecided in a 
right one. The practical consequences of error 
may be relied upon to correct themselves through 
the suffering they entail. 

Indecision is prolific of disease and kills through 
inactivity and stagnation. 

No battle was ever won under the banner of 
" I can't." 

It is only when we recognize and boldly assert 
our power that we find it possible to change con- 
ditions. As long as we plead ignorance and in- 
capacity we excuse ourselves from effort and 
indulge our indolence. 

We are victims and bond-slaves just as long as 
we consent to be considered so and not a moment 
longer. We begin to manifest superiority to any 



DECISION. 167 

and all conditions when we have really made up 
our minds to full dominion. 

No one truly individualized will ever say, " God 
willing," but instead of this, " I will," recognizing 
himself as the legitimate expression of God's will. 

The voice of the Spirit is always to be heard by 
him who listens. " Behold, I have set the land 
before you. Go in and possess the land." 

Our grotesque ideas of God have resulted in 
grotesque expressions of ourselves. As man grows 
he no longer caricatures Deity in the figure of a 
Chinese Joss, but fashions an Apollo Belvidere, 
and knows that his highest art is but a faint ex- 
pression of a divine idea. He no longer fears the 
powers of darkness and the prince of the power 
of the air, because he recognizes in himself the 
power of light and knows that he is a prince of the 
universal realm. 

We suffer disease and poverty as long as we 
think we are compelled to do so, and are undecided 
in our purpose and authority. 

A common trouble with us all is our ambition 
to be masters before we have learned the meaning 
of service. We are apt to despise the small things 
and the short steps. We want to assert power 
rather than develop it through the discipline of 
experience. We want to stride with seven-league 
boots before we have learned to creep. We are 
impatient to read before we know the alphabet 



1 63 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

and to receive the certificate of skilled navigators 
before we have learned to stand our watch at the 
wheel. Confidence is the first lesson in the spirit- 
ual primer and full realization is the last. 

Before we can arrive at a firm decision regarding 
a new course we must abandon all regrets concern- 
ing the old. We must permit no hesitancy of fear. 
We must not be disturbed by contrary winds. 

Perhaps the greatest surprise awaiting the de- 
carnate soul will be the discovery of the wonder- 
ful wealth of latent power of which it had remained 
in ignorance in its earth life. With an abundant 
and marvellous provision for our material journey 
we limp and struggle through a brief incarnation, 
suffering tortures of hunger, thirst, and loneliness, 
while living in a land of plenty, watered by in- 
exhaustible springs and peopled by loving pres- 
ences. The soul lives in an earthly paradise and 
feeds on husks. It toils as a slave, because it 
lives so close to the ground it does not know that 
it is free. 

Many never understand themselves or one an- 
other till long after they have dropped the mortal 
body. 

We need not live in an illusion because we 
are embodied in matter, and are dwellers on the 
planet Earth. If we have deceived ourselves, it 
is because we chose to dream and to postpone 
awakening. 



DECISION. 169 

We preferred to consider trivial things of real 
importance rather than view life from a higher 
standpoint. Truth would have dwarfed our petty 
occupations. It would not have flattered our 
personal vanity or confirmed our childish theories 
of existence. 

Life contains a full provision for us all. There 
is no lack to any human creature who is ready to 
obey the laws of harmony. 

Many will protest impatiently at such a claim, 
and cite in disproof the wretchedness and squalor 
that abound among those who are considered help- 
less. 

Such objectors look only at the surface of 
things, without appreciation of the laws of cause 
and effect. 

It is the fashion of men to be impatient with 
what they do not understand. It is usual for us to 
resent the implication that we are strictly respon- 
sible for our own faults and failures. The fact 
that all the world imagines vastly improved condi- 
tions for what we have chosen to call the next 
life only shows the possibility of bettering the con- 
ditions of this. 

We expect sometime to be free from anxiety 
and grief. 

When we are willing to assume our rightful 
attitude toward one another we will find this 
freedom can be achieved to-day. There is no 



170 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

more reason for our present suffering than will 
exist a hundred or a thousand years from now. 

A spirit truly poised is not dependent for its 
happiness on anything outside itself. 

It is tranquil through the recognition that all 
life is evolution of character, and that each is 
responsible only for his own development. Char- 
acter is an individual possession. We cannot ac- 
quire it for another. 

Grief for another's faults will often feed the 
morbid nature of a weakling and prolong the 
indulgence of the errors for which we grieve. 

A wise and loving indifference will invariably 
prove a tonic that compels the offender finally to 
realize that he alone is vitally concerned in the 
question of his welfare, and that no one else can 
shoulder his responsibility or share it with him. 

All immorality is a condition of hysteria. It 
thrives on sentimental sympathy, as ulcers often 
feed upon the salves that are applied for their relief. 
Our power to assist another is crippled by the 
depression which comes through pity. Pity is 
always a sacrifice of power. Pity and power never 
can be yoked together. True principle is always 
robust. It is spiritual knowledge, and has in it no 
element of indecision or distrust. It stands un- 
moved by temporary appearances, and has unwav- 
ering confidence in everlasting good for every life. 
It admits no doubt or failure possible, but holds to 



DECISION. 171 

the assurance that the higher self of every one will 
eventually claim its right to govern. The facts of 
time are not distressing to one who lives in the 
larger fact of the eternal. It is not persuasion or 
environment that reforms a life, but the awaken- 
ing of its own innate energies. These alone have 
power to renew the purpose, vitalize the will, and 
guide the destinies that we are helpless to control 
for one another. 

Human temptation is a puny thing to an enfran- 
chised spirit. 

There are no fetters of habit except what we 
have forged for ourselves. The same strength which 
has fastened them upon us can remove them in- 
stantly by simply reversing the action of the will, 
which has already proved its power in the structure 
it has raised, as the heavy stones of the great 
pyramid testify to the strength and skill and pon- 
derous machinery employed in its erection. 

We often neglect to reckon intelligently with the 
forces we set in motion to make or mar our lives. 
They are not to be treated as playthings or despised 
as the creation of idealists. 

It is folly to fall upon our swords on the field of 
a lost conflict like the old commanders of the 
Roman legions. The tides of battle often turn 
when least expected. Until we can see every 
corner of the field and understand the movements 
of the unseen hosts about us to which we are 



172 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

related we have no right or reason to lower our 
standards or admit defeat. 

The strategic movements of an army often take 
on temporarily the appearance of disaster and 
retreat when they are only the preparation for an 
overwhelming advance to final victory. 

We govern kingdoms that have never been 
polled. Their census is unknown to us, their 
power unsuspected. If we waver in our purposes 
our house is divided against itself. The different 
factions endeavor to fulfil their understanding of our 
wishes, but when we weakly yield to fickleness there 
is confusion in the camp and we are torn with the 
contending elements. Our greatest crime is a 
surrender of our right to rule ourselves. Our 
greatest weakness is a state of indecision. 

When we recognize the power of the soul within 
us and the value of its work we know it is in- 
capable of defeat. Not only is our life invulner- 
able to evil, but it is invincible in every decided 
purpose. 

Let us stand upright on our feet. Our ankle 
bones will find the strength they need. Let us 
stretch forth the arm that we think withered. 
We will speedily find that it is whole. Let us 
go boldly forward with a song upon our lips, 
indifferent to any suffering or death which leads 
to the awakening of slumbering powers. Should 
we not gladly serve if thus we learn to govern? 



DECISION. 173 

Right living is true service. It yields an ever- 
increasing satisfaction. We have no reason to wish 
for better opportunities through larger possession 
of money or influence. The only real power is 
that which radiates from character. All our fancied 
limitations lie in the artificial conditions we create. 
They do not belong to the real man or his envi- 
ronment. We are slow to accept the truth of our 
infinity. Sooner or later we arrive at its recog- 
nition. 

Truth awaits our pleasure. Its acceptance is a 
matter of choice to every individual. We can 
never exaggerate the intelligence or power of the 
spirit. Every demonstration comes to us at the 
moment we are' prepared to welcome it. We must 
needs break down the walls of doubt and indecision 
we have built about us before we can obtain the 
evidence we seek, as we must open our eyes before 
we can see the sun and study its phenomena. 

Our titles and estates are ready when we claim 
them. The freedom day of the soul is not defined 
and limited by any statutes. 

Success is quite impossible to him who throws 
his energies into the forging of thought fetters, 
and hears only the voice of his lesser self. 

To an illuminated will the perplexities of life 
are but the dust stirred by its chariot wheels in its 
triumphant progress. 

It takes joyfully the spoiling of its goods because 



174 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

it knows that every experience is friendly and help- 
ful, and will feed its power. 

We spurn the thought of escape when we have 
learned to transmute disagreeable conditions into 
spiritual nutriment. When we know that, we can 
change our relation to suffering through mastery 
of ourselves. 

The dwellers in malarial climates sometimes 
plant the eucalyptus in their gardens. 

This wonderful tree absorbs from the atmosphere 
the poisonous elements, and makes them con- 
tribute to its sturdy growth. When we understand 
the secrets of spiritual chemistry we thrive upon 
conditions we have always regarded as malarial. 
Vexations, disappointments, mortifications, and 
annoyances of every kind will furnish us with ele- 
ments of nourishment. Not only do they cease 
to poison our happiness and becloud our days, but 
we can easily welcome them as helpful tests of 
our development. 

After the dreary days of temptation in the wil- 
derness we emerge with larger control of disease 
and devils. In such hours of trial we make our 
final decision upon many a question which will 
never again possess the power to disturb our 
peace, because we know the force that we em- 
body. 

The value of experience is greater than we can 
understand while under the stress that it involves. 



DECISION. 175 

Its cost is always an indication of our need. We 
get it at the lowest price, and at our own bid. 
No one but ourselves determines the emergency 
or names the compensation we must pay. The 
" slings and arrows of outrageous fortune " are the 
uncertainties and fears with which we torture and 
wound ourselves in every hour of sojourning in the 
land of indecision. When we once have passed the 
barriers our doubts have raised we find an open 
way to power. 

The time to realize and assert power is when 
we are most sensible of weakness. The time to 
declare health is when we are suffering from ill- 
ness. The time to avow opulence is when we are 
most painfully conscious of our poverty. It is 
in the valley of decision that we find relief from 
all these things. But it is necessary that we 
should stand alone before we can walk erect and 
free, and this is first a mental process. 

When the early adventurers went to South 
Africa for diamonds, they built their huts of mud 
and laid out roads for hauling their supplies. 

After they had thoroughly examined the coun- 
try their experts pronounced it a barren and worth- 
less land. 

Others followed who were more enlightened and 
less prejudiced. These soon discovered that the 
very huts in which they lived were thickly en- 
crusted with the precious gems. 



I76 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL, 

The clay road itself was a rich bed of diamonds. 

Is it not so with life? We think this world of 
matter very poor. We live in huts and search for 
wealth outside. At last, after great tribulation and 
continual disappointment, we awaken to the truth 
that we ourselves contain the gems of greatest 
value and of rarest promise. As long as we 
think ourselves dependent for happiness upon 
any material thing, we are the slaves and not 
the lords of matter. When we truly understand, 
we are thankful for life as it is in every hour, 
knowing that it holds the highest possible con- 
ditions necessary to our good. We may feel 
sure that this is true, not only for ourselves, but 
for every other life as well. We are always in 
the banqueting house of love. Every hour is 
filled with pleasant chimes. All our dice are 
double-sixes, and everything comes our way. Do 
we resent this as idealism? Then it is idealism 
of which we stand in greatest need. Do we 
clamor for a more practical philosophy? Our 
very demand reveals the fact that we are far from 
being practical ourselves. 

Before we enter into a useless struggle with the 
material conditions that surround us, let us get a 
firm mental grasp upon ourselves and we will find 
that all else yields easily to the change within. 

Our conceptions of life are all too small. The 
kingdom of mind and the kingdom of matter are 



DECISION. 177 

far beyond, in extent and richness, any horizon lines 
we yet have sighted. 

We are their lawful sovereigns, spirits clothed 
in matter, gods manifest in the flesh. If we real- 
ized our destiny we would greet ourselves every 
morning, when we returned from our excursions 
upon astral planes, to take up again our robe and 
crown of matter, with the beautiful salutation of 
the East, " O King, live forever ! " 

Alexander wept because he had no more worlds 
to conquer. We have no such cause for tears. 
We haven't a bodily organ that has found the 
limits of its powers. Sandow, the strong man, 
reports that he is enlarging his muscles and ex- 
panding his lungs and strengthening his heart con- 
tinually, that he can every year lift heavier weights. 
We do not yet use all the air-cells of our lungs. 
We have not begun to explore the cellular tissue 
of the brain. We have many muscles that we sel- 
dom call into action. There are such undiscov- 
ered lands in body and brain that it will require 
many an incarnation to explore and master them. 

Worry comes from a Dutch word, " worgen," 
meaning to throttle. 

We strangle ourselves with worry. This is the 
greatest enemy of life. We think we have reached 
the limit of endurance before our backbone has 
really straightened itself to the weight. Many 
men and women are like jelly-fish and scarcely 



178 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

belong to the order of vertebrates. They lack 
fibre and have not yet lived long enough to develop 
a real spinal column. 

We never suffer so much that we could not 
suffer far more and live. We do not wear out 
from overwork, but from improper use of our 
faculties and worry. We get discouraged and lie 
down and die before our real capacity for doing 
and enduring has been tested. Our wills are im- 
pulsive and erratic, weak and fickle for the lack of 
spiritual decision. Our purpose is not clearly 
formed to express divinity in daily life. We really 
intend to do it sometime, but secretly prefer to 
indulge our selfishness a little longer. 

If we are honest we will not bewail our weakness, 
but we will correct it. We will not mourn our 
uselessness, but will simply go to work and make 
ourselves useful. We will not lament our hard- 
ships, but will change them into stimulants. When 
we are thoroughly decided and ready to do God's 
work we always find God ready to work through 
us. At that point of decision we can never fail in 
either equipment or opportunity. God's resources 
are never limited to the range of our perceptions. 
Much that we do not see exists and has existed 
always, though our eyes were not strong enough 
to perceive it. To the unaided vision the skies 
seem often starless. With a powerful telescope 
we see one hundred million stars where only six 



DECISION. 1 79 

or seven thousand are visible without the glass. 
What is only theory to one is often fact to another 
who has pushed his investigations further. 

If we have not studied sidereal time and planet- 
ary distances, how can we expect to map the 
heavens ? 

If we have examined life only upon material 
lines, how can we understand spiritual philosophies 
which make life to others a beautiful and syste- 
matic working of intelligent law where we see only 
suffering and confusion? 

There is no doubt but that we shall all look 
back from the problems which confront us in the 
immaterial life of the astral plane and feel that in 
comparison the lessons of earth were simple and 
easy. If life is eternal progress, as every sane 
mind believes, the first condition of happiness is 
confidence, and its greatest danger is the indecision 
which comes through fear. 

When we have settled once for all that the 
to-morrow of death will never arrive, no matter 
whether we live in fear or longing for it, we are 
prepared to eat and drink to-day in security and 
gladness and feel equal to the conquest of any 
and all material conditions through the use of 
spiritual powers. 

God grant that we may suffer till all dread of 
suffering is past, that we may feel the furnace of 
affliction heated to such stress that from the 



l8o DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

mighty impulse of our pain the higher self may be 
truly born. In the hour of our anguish this serene 
one walks beside us and in his presence we find 
all sorrow stilled forevermore. 



With every day leave yesterday behind — 
and turn not back. 



DECISION. l8l 



Discontent and indecision close all doors of 
success and happiness. 

Disappointment should be always taken as a 
stimulant and never viewed as a discouragement. 



1 82 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



Spiritual progress is never hindered by our 
duties or want of time. 

There can be no conflict between our aspira- 
tions and our responsibilities. 

Our most precious opportunities are often those 
disguised in tatters. They pass us by unrecog- 
nized, because we judge life by appearances in- 
stead of principles. 



THOUGHT TONICS. ■ 1 83 

IX. 

THOUGHT TONICS. 

" I cried aloud, and wrung my hands in woe 

When Grief came to my door in mourning guise ; 
I strove to shut the door, and closed my eyes, 
But she stood, patient, there, and would not go. 

" Then Pain came down the pathway, sad and slow; 
And Sacrifice with face raised to the skies ; 
And Poverty, with brooding, anxious sighs ; 
And all Grief's sisters, talking soft and low. 

" Long, long I stood rebellious, with the door 

Closed on the grim ranks waiting there outside ; 
My heart beat fiercely, and I paced the floor 

With sobs and moans. But when the daylight died, 
With trembling hands I flung the portals wide — 
And lo ! but Peace came in, to go no more. 11 

— Fanny Driscott. 

The power that we call " God " and u Law" is 
wise and strong enough to provide for man the 
most favorable conditions he permits. 

" God " is Love, and Love could be satisfied 
with nothing less, for Love is Infinite Intelligence 
and Power. Where, then, is the limitation, and 
why do we suffer? 

The answer is always to be found within the 
individual soul, which has the sovereign power of 



1 84 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL, 

control. Man can open wide all doors of recep- 
tiveness ; can throw down all walls and live in the 
open ; or he can shut himself up in the deepest 
dungeons of his personal life and bar out every 
ray of sunlight. 

The sun is powerful indeed, but the delicate 
membrane of the human eyelid can exclude it 
when the man so wills. Nothing is so blinding as 
the persistent thought of weakness. 

The first step in healing or altering the condi- 
tions of existence is recognition of the sovereignty 
of Self. 

The next is recognition of the sovereignty of 
Good. 

The work is complete when these two principles 
have been identified. The windows of heaven are 
always open. It is our windows that are often 
closed. 

The Egyptian peasant fertilizes his little tract 
bordering on the desert by laboriously hauling up 
the water from the river with his bucket or wheel. 
He turns it into his small trenches. But there 
comes a day when the great river rises above its 
banks, and in a majestic overflow wipes away all 
its petty barriers and inundates the very desert it- 
self, carrying opulence of fertility noiselessly and 
easily to all the surrounding country. If we stand 
upon the shore and watch its rising tides we see 
that the waters find their way to every nook and 



THOUGHT TONICS. 185 

cranny, and the dry sands are drenched in its floods 
and cleansed with its billows. These flood tides 
are irresistible. They are glorious in their power 
and beauty. 

All this is but a faint suggestion of the ever- 
present opportunities of the soul. Life is always 
at its flood, though our realization may ebb and 
flow. It is only we who imagine the ebb as we 
wade in the murky waters of a shallow experi- 
ence, indulging our self-pity and bemoaning our 
sufferings. 

If we cease our vain struggles and lamentations 
long enough to look away from the personal self 
with its petty cares, and to recognize the spiritual 
self with its calm confidence of inexhaustible ener- 
gies, we realize that life is going very well with us 
indeed, and we are daily gaining the experience we 
need. 

We exhaust our strength in our impatience at 
our work and the conditions that surround us. 
There is nothing that comes to us which we could 
not do easily with true adjustment, but we waste 
our forces in our worries. It is our leverage that 
is at fault. When that is changed we will find the 
heaviest weights are easily raised. 

The mechanism of our existence is simpler than 
we think. None of its cog-wheels are misplaced. 
If we will only permit them to work into each 
other where they belong we will discover that there 



1 86 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

is no superfluous friction, and the adjustment of 
experience to need is truly marvellous. 

The propositions of Euclid would remain true 
if there were no mathematical professors in the 
universities able to demonstrate them. The earth 
has been always round, even through the centuries 
when its scientific men declared that it was flat. 

It does not follow that a proposition in spiritual 
science is untrue because we have never learned 
its demonstration. 

Truth is never dependent to the least degree 
upon the personality of teachers. We must not 
imagine Truth will stand or fall with any person- 
ality. Telegraphy remains an accurate mani- 
festation of electric science even though all the 
operators in the land be proven incompetent and 
unreliable. 

It is always true when we suffer that, like Peter 
in prison, we are " sleeping between two soldiers, 
bound with two chains." One fetter is the thought 
of our own weak personality ; the other is the doubt 
of the power of Good. 

When the light has shone into our prison and 
we hear the voice of the Angel of Truth — " Arise 
quickly, gird thyself, follow me " — our chains fall 
off, we pass safely through the first and second 
wards, and even " the iron gate that leadeth into 
the city " opens to us of its own accord, and we go 
out again among men, freed from pain and disease, 



THOUGHT TONICS. 187 

and strong in the might of the Spirit which has 
awakened in us the consciousness that all power is 
given unto us in heaven and in earth. 

When our suffering seems almost beyond endur- 
ance we may always gain relief by making a bold 
" change of front." This is considered the most 
difficult problem in military tactics when made in 
the face of an enemy, and it is often the most brill- 
iantly effective move of martial science. 

Instead of declaring, as we so often do in our 
mental anguish, " I can't stand it any longer," let 
us assert with Paul, li \ glory in tribulation; " " I 
take pleasure in infirmities;" " I can endure all 
things" Let us " agree with our adversary 
quickly " while we are in the way with him, and 
make friends of our adversities. Nothing else will 
so quickly disarm their power and neutralize their 
sting. 

It makes a great difference in a landscape 
whether we see it through a convex or a concave 
lens ; whether we look through the large end of a 
telescope and thus remove the objects to a dis- 
tance, or through the small end and bring them 
within close range. We get a very different im- 
pression of a country when we view it from the 
mountain-tops from what we receive in passing 
through its valleys. 

How vastly different a troubled question looks 
to us at noonday and at midnight ! We flinch in 



I 88 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

the hours of darkness from a problem we can 
meet bravely when we are on our feet and under 
the momentum of the noonday vigor. 

This is all the difference between negative and 
positive conditions. 

The engine which moves the train so easily 
along its rails when the power is applied to turn- 
ing the great drive wheels forward can be quickly 
reversed by a very slight movement of the lever, 
and all its force thrown into a backward motion. 

By boldly and persistently changing our thought 
from the negative conditions of discouragement 
and suffering to the positive conditions of strength 
and life, the very worst case of nervous prostra- 
tion can be quickly overcome. Nature abounds 
in remedial power, and it is always within our 
reach. Indeed, it is the same force that is tearing 
the engine to pieces, and needs only to be reversed 
to drive it forward. 

We ourselves have built the road-bed of our own 
experiences, and laid the rails on which we are 
pushing our engines ahead to a larger realization, 
or backward into suffering. Let us know that the 
highest lesson of life is not to live in either the 
present or future, but in the eternal. " He to 
whom time is as eternity and eternity as time is 
free," said the old mystic Boehm — an aphorism 
we should all engrave upon our watch-cases. 

When we look at pain or trouble through the 



THOUGHT TONICS. 1 89 

small end of our telescopes they are brought easily 
within close range and show in large proportions. 
When we reverse the telescope the same things 
seem infinitely removed. 

Now let us look at the personal man and all 
his paltry affairs through the lenses which put 
them far away and bring the eternal man into the 
field of our clearest vision. When we thus gain 
even a passing glimpse of our higher selves the 
landscape of trouble seems misty and remote. 
We do not have to climb very far up the moun- 
tain-side to get above the clouds and find a differ- 
ent world. How many an Alpine traveller has 
passed from the drenching storm of the lower alti- 
tudes to see the glorious silvered clouds below 
him, and the sun shining in all its radiant splen- 
dor on the snow-capped peaks of Jungfrau and 
Mt. Blanc! It was only a turn of the road and 
a few rods' upward climb that wrought the magic 
change. But such an experience can never be 
forgotten, for it brings a dream of paradise. 

How shall we climb out of nervous prostration? 
Let us begin by ceasing to oppose — ceasing to 
fight our troubles, declaring their nonentity, while 
we give ear to the thought of the eternal man — 
our own true self — whose voice we have learned to 
know and whom we have invited in to sup with us. 

We have thus accomplished a positive molecular 
change. We have turned off the current of anxious 



190 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

thought. We have altered our polarity. We have 
accomplished with our troubles the same results 
that would follow to the iron filings grouped about 
the magnet if it should be suddenly demagnet- 
ized. The bits of iron fall away. They have 
nothing to which to cling. The force that held 
them is transferred to a new field. Our troubles 
are like spoiled children that seek to gain atten- 
tion by their kicks and screams. They make 
faces at us like street urchins as long as we come 
to the window. When we no longer scold, and 
calmly pass along in true indifference, they do not 
find the satisfaction they demand. They feed 
upon sensation and are starved to death by our 
refusal to acknowledge them. 

The small boy who fell in the woods and hurt 
himself told his young friends who asked him if he 
cried, " Of course not, there was nobody to hear." 
Our troubles often show a seeming intelligence, 
and leave us when we no longer notice them and 
they find they have lost the power to annoy. 

This comes when we cease to coddle or fear the 
personal man and begin to cultivate the Spiritual 
and live in the Eternal ; when we learn the mean- 
ing of the words, " I, the imperfect, adore my own 
perfect." 

Disease and trouble never enter our dominions 
unless they are invited. They never stay unless 
they are entertained. 



THOUGHT TONICS. 191 

Science declares that death comes always 
through disease and for disease we are responsible. 
Old age itself is never fatal. The fountain of life is 
perennial. Ignorance and fear are at the root of 
all disturbance. In overcoming these we vanquish 
the last enemy. All suffering comes from igno- 
rance of God. 

In the beautiful allegory of Job we find that 
after all material things had been taken from him 
and he had learned that there was nothing to trust 
but God the test was successfully passed and his 
possessions were doubled from that hour. 

In the ancient folk-lore we are told of a flood in 
which all land passed out of sight and Noah had 
nothing but his ark and the promise of a clean earth. 
But the flood ended ; the ark rested upon solid 
ground ; and the new life was richer than the old. 

We read that Abraham was ready to sacrifice 
his only son, and when he had faced that point 
of self-surrender the emergency of his life was 
safely over. To Job was returned his wealth, to 
Noah his earth, and to Abraham his son. 

When we are confident of our possessions we 
are not tenacious of them. Fear is always a mark 
of poverty. 

Through willingness to surrender we often gain 
a truer hold. 

If we would loosen our life we would always 
save it. 



192 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Intensity of desire is an obstacle to accomplish- 
ment. 

It is idle to talk of " dying grace " and faith in 
another life when we haven't enough faith in the 
passing day to carry us through a single hour 
without worriment. 

Our " faith " too often ends with the limit of our 
eyesight, just as our appreciation of God's good- 
ness is gauged by the size of our bank account. 

Every hour of emergency will bring its own de- 
liverance to him who waits with confidence. 

The fears and sufferings which we encounter in 
one place are left behind as we move on. 

Higher levels are always accessible. We need 
not struggle with any difficulty upon the plane 
where it appears. If our cellars are submerged 
we do not have to occupy them. If the fog has 
dropped down upon us in the valley we must 
gird up our loins and climb the hillside. In other 
altitudes we will find the sunshine, and leave 
behind the restlessness and fever which have 
wearied us. Life's vexations and annoyances 
fall away from us in a clearer atmosphere. They 
are as yesterday's flesh stains which were washed 
off in our morning bath, or yesterday's bruises 
which were healed while we slept, The morning 
finds us fresh and vigorous and ready for the work 
of a new day. Our trouble was only a dream. 
Love is the real power which rules our universe 



THOUGHT TONICS. 1 93 

and weaves the warp and woof of life, throwing 
its shuttle with a wisdom and precision which 
seem marvellous to our half-opened eyes. 

Why do we so often stop upon the threshold 
of Divinity when we might enter its very courts? 

Why do we so often prefer to believe in the 
necessity of suffering and weakness rather than in 
the possibility of strength and gladness? 

Why do we argue so persistently for endurance 
and resignation rather than accept the larger view 
of life which vests all power in ourselves and makes 
us the arbiters of our own destinies? 

Why should we cling with such surprising tenac- 
ity to our musty theories and dogmas, as if they 
were treasures from which we could not bear to 
part, though they have brought us nothing but 
sorrow and disgust with human life? 

How closely we hug our dark delusions, while 
we thank God we are not credulous as other men ! 
How carefully we nurse our griefs and troubles, 
priding ourselves that we are "practical" in our 
bondage ! 

Poverty and illness we call decrees of God. 
Fate and luck are our taskmasters. 

Spiritual freedom is an idle superstition, death is 
a wall and not a door. Imagination and mind- 
reading explain all phenomena, and what we do 
not know is not worth knowing. Happy im- 
beciles ! 



194 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Is there no other way for us to climb to knowl- 
edge than through pain? 

Must we drain the dregs of the cup of sorrow 
only to find at last that it was our own hand that 
pressed it to our lips? 

We have been often told that we should not 
grieve the spirit. Is it not equally wrong to grieve 
the body, the expression of spirit? 

The highest good is possible only when we have 
established full accord between these two. 

The body is grieved by our distrust of any of 
its organs. It is grieved by asceticism and foolish 
starvation as well as by unreasonable indulgence 
of the sensual life. 

The reaction from one form of selfishness fre- 
quently carries us into another extreme that is 
just as far removed from a true balance as the first. 
We often swing like the pendulum across the arc 
of the circle many times before we rest in the spir- 
itual centre that is equally removed from both 
extremities. Truth involves expression that is 
rounded and complete. It has become uncon- 
scious symmetry that is not emphasized as either 
vice or virtue. It identifies the human and divine, 
and does not strangle one in order to express the 
other. 

We do not throttle the child to hasten his prog- 
ress through the elementary stages of his education. 
We guide him patiently and kindly, with full as- 



THOUGHT TONICS. 1 95 

surance that as he becomes developed he will put 
away childish things. Meanwhile his childish 
things are doing him no injury, and if he occasion- 
ally indulges himself in too many ''sweets" his 
own stomach will revolt and eject the poison. 

Nature rules her university better than we govern 
our particular schoolrooms, and has carefully pro- 
vided that man's self-destructive follies shall very 
soon correct themselves. 

Health is the possession of every one who has 
learned to draw his check upon the Bank of Uni- 
versal Life which honors all right demands, and 
never asks to compromise with creditors. 

It is a sacrifice of power to divert our thoughts 
needlessly to the concerns of the personal life. 
An unworthy self-indulgence is self-denial in the 
end, for the reason that it keeps from itself the best 
things, while much that is called " self-denial " is 
simply an indulgence in the high privilege of ser- 
vice and a denial only of the lower self. 

When we cultivate thoughts of strength for others 
we ourselves grow strong. Habitual thoughts of 
peace bring us tranquillity. 

The thoughts of opulence will naturally result 
in wealth if rightly held. True thought will lead 
to action, but the power is in the thought more 
than in the action. 

If all of Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, 
and all her paths are peace, there is nothing more 



196 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

unrighteous than disease and poverty. Any and 
all attempts to find excuse for them in ourselves 
or others is perversion of truth. 

Life is not the mystery we suppose when we 
are willing to look it boldly in the face with hon- 
est eyes. But we must study it apart from the 
artificial conditions of a pseudo " civilization." 

Health and prosperity are found in the soul's 
own heaven of simplicity. 

We have only to lift our eyes to the serpent 
symbolizing wisdom, and the glance brings de- 
liverance and healing. We have only to dip in 
some thought-pool of Bethesda, when its waters 
have been troubled by an angel, to be made per- 
fectly whole of any disease. 

Naaman expected the prophet to do some great 
thing for his recovery, but a simple act of obedi- 
ence on his own part proved sufficient for his 
cleansing. 

Our eyes are opened by the healing touch of 
some cool waters of Siloam, and we find ourselves 
in a new world which has not needed to be reached 
by dangerous voyages across strange seas, but 
which has always lain about us, though we knew it 
not. 

There are no " peculiar " cases to the mental 
healer. The community of suffering is due to the 
community of ignorance and fear. This is human 
and racial, and not in any sense peculiar. 



THOUGHT TONICS. 1 97 

When we have recognized our common weak- 
nesses and killed out the sense of separateness, we 
have learned the earliest lesson in true brother- 
hood. The pride of family is gradually disap- 
pearing in the larger thought and knowledge of 
fraternal life. 

Suffering has often proved the greatest blessing 
to humanity. It compels us to search out and 
remove its cause, and thus we learn the beauties 
of Eternal Law. 

Life is more continuous than our recollection. 
Is it incredible that we have been personally 
familiar with all the historical eras of this planet? 
Is it impossible that we have been performers in 
many of the dramas we study with such interest? 
May we not have played many parts on different 
stages of human action, governing and serving 
alternately in high conditions and in low? Is it 
difficult to conceive that we may have moved in 
the long past through all the range of climate and 
of social circumstance while following westward 
in its course the star of empire? Could we not 
have migrated from one continent and race to 
another, and from oriental quietude to the evo- 
lution of occidental energy? It is a strange 
fact to be observed to-day that this western 
nationality of ours is absorbing the composite man 
of Europe and the East, and the ready adjustment 
to new conditions suggests that they are possibly 



198 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

not so new as may appear. One sees in many an 
American face strange reminders of oriental types, 
hinting at Egyptian, Greek, or Hindoo ancestry. 

There is much in the social and political condi- 
tions of the Anglo-Saxon race in this nineteenth 
century to recall the Elizabethan and Roman eras, 
which in their turn resembled one another so 
peculiarly that it would hardly seem difficult to 
recognize the old performers in new r61es and 
costumes. 

Through all the weaving of mortal and immortal 
life runs the golden thread of spiritual conscious- 
ness. As we gradually awaken, we perceive that 
life itself is a perpetual miracle. 

The old legends are literally true. We sell our 
souls for a bauble when we deliberately choose the 
sensual above the spiritual and give it the reins of 
government. 

When the daylight comes to us, whether upon 
this side of death or the other, we discover that the 
material coin we have earned by the exchange is 
as debased and useless as dead leaves. 

If here we abide by principle we will find there 
that we have built real treasure houses and filled 
them with precious things. 

Some people sigh for rest and heaven and an- 
gelic company while blind to the presence of 
veritable angels in their own households — guar- 
dian spirits that walk lovingly beside them in the 



THOUGHT TONICS. 199 

homely guise of mortals ministering patiently to 
their daily needs, heedless of their ingratitude and 
selfishness. 

The yearning for rest is generally the fruit of 
self-pity and indolence. It is best cured by the 
stripes of severer trouble with which life in its 
kindness often arouses us to tardy recognition 
of our blindness. The new difficulties make the 
former state appear as heavenly compared with 
that into which we have fallen through our per- 
sistent folly. Many of those who long the most 
for angels to comfort and succor them would not 
know an angel if he should appear, nor would 
they find anything congenial in his company. 
They are not fit for such society. There is but 
little in them that would be attractive to celestial 
beings. 

A selfish life dulls all our senses and makes us 
both deaf and blind to our highest good. 

If we give ear to other voices we cannot hear 
the voice of infinite Wisdom. 

Our Divinity will not share its throne. It 
demands an individual kingdom. 

We may " go first" and bury our dead, buy and 
sell our lands and oxen, and bid farewell to those 
that are in our homes. 

We may listen to the voice of fame, the voice 
of greed, the voice of pleasure, and in the end we 
are sure to declare that all is but vexation of spirit. 



200 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

As these voices die away there comes a silence, 
and out of the silence comes a faint and gentle 
tone that we have never heard before : 

" Behold /stand at the door and knock." 

" All things are now ready." " Ye shall find 
rest to your souls." 

If we heed this voice we gladly turn away from 
all the tumult in which we have spent our days 
and find at last that we are truly honored guests 
in the banqueting-house of Life, and the banner 
over us is Love. 



None but ourselves can ever fix the measure or 
quality of our goodness. 

Every one is as good as he chooses to be, but 
none so good as he knows how. 



THOUGHT TONICS. 201 



Our lives should not be governed by the opin- 
ions of others. 

The only matter of importance is that we should 
deserve to think well of ourselves. 

When we are truly poised we are indifferent 
alike to praise and blame. Praise is no longer 
sweet to the taste, nor is blame bitter. 



202 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



Nature is an all-sufficient nurse. The greatest 
assistance we can render her is to trust her to do 
her work. 

Her resources are not limited by our perceptions. 



EXPRESSION. 203 

X. 

EXPRESSION. 

Speech comes only with knowledge. Attain to knowledge 
and you will attain to speech. 

Life itself has speech and is never silent. — " Light on the 
Path.'" 

«« The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung. 11 

— Walt Whitman. 

It has already become an axiom in metaphysics 
that all suffering comes from misdirected energy. 

Pain is an abnormal expression of life forces 
that have been diverted from their proper channels 
or flow through them in disproportionate volume. 

Nature cannot be suppressed when once 
awakened. Its energies cannot be long confined 
in storage batteries of single cells. They demand 
a large and varied expression. To this truth all 
departments of life continually testify. The fecun- 
dity and diversity of nature's powers are shown in 
all its kingdoms. 

Man may choose the channels through which 
this tireless energy shall have its largest expres- 
sion in his personal life — whether in animal and 
intellectual vigor wisely blended, or in either one 
of them unduly emphasized. The spiritual force 
will employ itself in either or both expressions 



204 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

subject to the direction of the individual's own 
will. 

According to his choice will he manifest power. 
The highest expression makes the strongest de- 
mand upon the infinite source, and results in the 
largest growth. Power upon any plane is always 
increased by use. 

A wholesome nature finds its pleasure in its work 
and does not require the goad of fame or greed. 

The demonstration to itself of its own power to 
create is the liveliest satisfaction it can experience. 

To widen its activities and employ them in 
service is its greatest gladness and presents no 
thought of sacrifice. There are many who find 
no pleasure outside the sensual life. Man does 
not belong among the grub worms, but among 
the birds. When we begin to comprehend our 
freedom we find our circulation quickened, and 
obstructions disappear as our impatience lessens. 

The universal aim is happiness. We discover 
sooner or later that full satisfaction can be found 
only in right living. It is a necessity that all 
men should eventually become good or miss the 
fulfilment of the supreme purpose of human life. 

Only in goodness do we find essential power, 
and only in power, satisfaction. Good is the 
strongest magnet known to us. Every pang of 
suffering is an impulse toward health and virtue. 
Nature will not be satisfied with any imperfect work. 



EXPRESSIOA T . 205 

Suppression is not dominion. We must root 
out and exterminate the wrong beliefs — the men- 
tal weeds. We must plough and harrow the 
ground, and plant an entirely new crop of goodly 
thoughts. Only in this way can we become 
proprietors of our fields — the lords of our do- 
mains. 

We can better afford to give our land a thor- 
oughly new sowing than to preserve large tracts of 
weeds for fear that in destroying them we shall 
part with a few heads of grain. Our work must be 
truly " radical " — root work. Let us not be too 
" nice" in the winnowing of our seed, for fear we 
should be thought erratic and peculiar. 

It is more trouble to harmonize old thoughts 
and new than to begin again our thinking upon 
entirely new lines. The Nazarene discovered in 
his earliest work that it was absolutely useless to 
attempt the putting of new wine into the old 
bottles ; inevitably it must burst the bottles. We 
need not fear that any truth will be lost to a truth- 
ful soul. 

All error is the incomplete statement or mani- 
festation of something real. It is a partial 
and imperfect inspiration, and speedily brings its 
own correction through the suffering that it en- 
tails. 

The lesson of right expression is the most im- 
portant we have to learn. It demands of us that 



206 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

we should guide emotion into its proper chan- 
nels, and control the valves of feeling so that all 
utterance shall be normal and wholesome, and 
leave no smart or regret "behind. 

Immorality comes often from an injudicious 
suppression of natural and proper appetites which 
have been denied and strangled, when they should 
have been recognized and trained. 

Strangulation is not the highest form of self- 
control, nor does it bring desirable results. There 
is usually as much intemperance in reformers as in 
sensualists, whatever be the banner under which 
they rally. 

When Lazarus had heard the voice of the Christ 
he came out of his tomb, but found himself bound 
hand and foot with graveclothes. 

It is not enough that the command oi the spirit 
should reach us, " Come forth ! " 

We awaken — -we move — but we need the fur- 
ther word, " Loose him and let him go." 

Our graveclothes cling to us. They are our 
errors in which we have been educated, our false 
beliefs, — our prejudices, resentments, and regrets, 
— everything which in any way seems to bind us 
or to limit our sense of the perfect freedom which 
belongs to truth. 

Resurrection brings us into newness of life, out 
of the shadows into the morning. We have 
nothing further to do with graveclothes. 



EXPRESSION. 207 

Freedom and disease or poverty can never 
exist together. The one inevitably destroys the 
other. 

We may choose between them, but can never 
hold them both. It is strange with what persis- 
tency we often cling to shrouds, and even some- 
times miss the dreary shelter of the tomb that 
we have left. 

Our fountains are too often choked with rubbish 
turned back upon themselves and draining their 
waters into stagnant pools. 

Mind poisoning precedes blood poisoning. When 
we dwell in secret upon the thought of trouble, we 
expose ourselves to further dangers. We think, 
perhaps, that our lives have been darkened by 
tragedies of deepest suffering. We imagine our- 
selves to have endured heavier sorrows than often 
fall to the lot of men. Our days have been filled 
with grief; our bread has been as ashes, and " our 
tears have been our meat day and night." 

Our most plaintive wailings are but those of 
children crying in the night. In the light of a 
larger life the trouble of the past will disappear as 
our horizon broadens. 

We are still in our infancy, and suffering like 
children from sore gums and cutting teeth. As 
we grow, these things that seem so serious to-day 
will be forgotten or remembered only as our early 
primers. 



208 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

When the morning comes to us we will find no 
cause of tears. 

If we have preferred the mourners' seats to 
places at the banquet, it has been a matter of 
taste, and the funeral-baked meats have doubtless 
served our needs. 

The flagons of joy have stood always at our 
elbow while we supped on sorrows. Life is never 
niggardly of its gladness. Heaviness of spirit is 
never imposed upon us without our consent. 

Wherever we find a special difficulty of environ- 
ment or weakness of character, we also find, if 
we look closely, a special faculty for grappling 
with it. We discover some strong point of op- 
portunity or will opposed to it which is brought 
out with especial emphasis by the occasion — as we 
find in tropical countries vegetable antidotes for the 
bites and stings of poisonous reptiles that abound. 

Wherever we find a marked trait of disposition, 
or a peculiar situation, we can soon discover, in a 
mental diagnosis, the seed-pod from which it grew 
and the opposite manifestation which made it 
necessary. Nature always aims at symmetry. 
She balances carefully her positive and negative 
forces. With every need there is some resource 
with which it can be met, for all supply in nature's 
wonderful expression has been developed in re- 
sponse to special demand. The soul is like a 
firefly or glow-worm. It radiates an inner light 



EXPRESSION. 209 

which illumines its own way. It possesses the 
magnetic power by which it can draw to itself the 
people and things it finds desirable. These in- 
terior forces have their corresponding organs in 
the eye which selects and the arms and hands 
which reach for the food that the mouth demands. 
Our spiritual radiations meet and mingle with 
those of other lives that are related to our own. 
Distance cannot separate us. We are guided to 
places and occupations which fulfil the purpose 
of our incarnation, and through which we give 
and receive all needful lessons. 

Moving on these lines of least resistance, we find 
the teachers and the tools that we require. The 
mysterious forces emanating from ourselves govern 
our environment at every moment. In our jour- 
neyings they guide our choice of routes and plans 
of travel. In library or bookstore these invisible 
rays search out and bring to our attention that 
which we find helpful, no matter how remotely 
it may be hidden and shelved. 

In what appears to be quite accidental ways 
particular paragraphs and pages that we need are 
brought before our eye. There is no search-light 
of man's invention which is anything more than a 
poor suggestion of this spiritual intelligence en 
lightening every human being. No magnet equals 
it in its attracting power. The universe is the 
field of its radiant energy. 



2IO DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Its currents are as irresistible as the law of 
gravitation. It is the expression of the same in- 
finite wisdom which has provided for the sparrow 
and the lily. 

As yet the race has made but small demands 
upon the natural resources of our planet. 

Malthus' theory is weak in that it takes account 
of only visible resources. It overlooks the fact 
that every fresh discovery in science shows us a 
new force stronger than any known before. 

If steam is to be supplanted by electricity, and 
electricity by solar energy or liquid air, why should 
we be anxious about the exhaustion of forests and 
coal-beds? 

If one drop of water contains an untold power, 
or a cubic foot of atmosphere the energy of 10,000 
foot-tons, it would seem as if we had no lack of 
force at our command. 

If nine-tenths of our nourishment is derived from 
the atmosphere, as is now claimed by science, it 
would surely be no impossible problem to dis- 
pense with the other tenth or find for it some sub- 
stitute for the food we now think necessary. 

At least we need not yet begin to tremble at 
the thought of a possible increase in population 
beyond the sustenance provided by Dame Nature. 

It would be just as wise to fear lest the birds and 
fishes should exhaust their food-supply because 
they grew so rapidly in numbers. 



expression: 2 1 1 

If we would put our emphasis on circulation 
rather than accumulation we would find that much 
of our difficulty concerning supply would vanish. 
If we would recognize the value of the principle of 
giving in place of the constant thought of getting 
we would not so often find ourselves in poverty. 
We need to make more frequent use of the exten- 
sor muscles, to open and reach out to one another, 
instead of so constantly desiring to draw into 
ourselves. We talk of being just, and fail of being 
generous. The virtues upon which we pride our- 
selves are always developed at the cost of symme- 
try of character, and so changed into vices in the 
process. 

Life is strong and true in its expression only when 
purpose and action are united and allied with will. 

Never for an instant should we give lodgment 
to an untrue thought. 

It opens the door to serious results, and puts our 
instrument out of tune. Impatience is explosive. 
It is like the nitrogen in gunpowder. We can no 
more predict the result of setting it free than we can 
tell the spot where lightning will strike when it has 
torn its way through the cloud and descended 
earthward. 

Our only safety is in eradicating it altogether 
from our temperament. 

Emphasis is generally both the child and father 
of impatience. 



212 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

It implies a doubt of our own statement. When 
we are confident of the strength of our position 
our tones are steady, our speech is calm, and the 
entire expression of voice and action is in har- 
*mony with our highest thought. 

Nature's chromatic scale has many octaves. 
The universal energy finds utterance in weeds as 
well as flowers, fruits, and forests. The same cre- 
ative forces are at work in all. 

Even the weeds are fragrant, after the cleansing 
of a storm, when the dust of the highway has been 
washed away. 

Can we not see that the same transforming 
energy that is manifested among the most highly 
developed of our fellow- men is working also in the 
slums of the great cities? The corruption that we 
find so repulsive and distressing will be surely 
washed off by the storms of experience. 

The divine principle which is within every 
human being will sometime manifest itself, for all 
are made in the image and likeness of supreme 
good. We cannot believe in God and refuse to 
believe in man. 

Much of our distress at sin and suffering results 
from want of understanding of the principles that 
govern life. There are many foolish ones whose 
tearful sympathies are but the symptoms of a 
moral hysteria, in which they indulge themselves 
from an unconscious love of sensation and desire 



EXPRESSION. 2 I 3 

of approbation. In a court of spiritual equity they 
would be convicted of obtaining admiration under 
false pretences. 

If we could awaken to-morrow with the full 
assurance that all our desires would be accom- 
plished speedily, might it not be possible that we 
would examine them more seriously? Might we 
not discover that some of our supposed desires 
would result in serious embarrassment? Do we 
really wish to have back among us all the friends 
for whom we are in mourning? Is it not true that 
sorrow at death is often in inverse ratio to the 
grief expressed, and that a deep veil or hat-band 
may be only a precaution to conceal the satisfac- 
tion of its wearer? There are many who delude 
themselves with fictitious troubles and have no 
grounds whatever for their claim that they have 
been defrauded of their happiness. 

If, on the other hand, we could know that our 
sincerest wishes were on the eve of realization, 
how quickly would our lives respond to the stimulus 
of such a confidence ! 

What strength and gladness we would show, 
relieved from the depressing influences of old 
anxieties and fears ! 

What new vigor would assert itself as the result 
of losing all our doubts ! With what a fine scorn 
we would look upon our tonics and doses, as quite 
useless in the new conditions of our minds ! Dys- 



214 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

pepsia and heart trouble, rheumatism and neural- 
gia, would vanish as if by magic, showing us that 
all causes of disease are in the mind and can 
be changed through mental impulse. 

We may have this impulse now. It comes 
with the knowledge that all forces on the causal 
or astral plane are pledged to the fulfilment 
of man's purpose when that purpose is held un- 
flinchingly. It is our fickleness and cowardice 
that oftenest defeat our aims. The man who dares 
and perseveres is the man who wins. Daring and 
perseverance are rare virtues, and always effectual 
when given right direction. 

If we are not satisfied with what our lives ex- 
press in their environment and bodily condi- 
tions, we must alter our desires and destroy our 
fears. 

Freedom is to be had only on these terms. 
Back of all unrest is desire or fear gnawing like a 
worm at the root of happiness. 

The imperfect results that we show in our ac- 
tivities are largely due to indecision and uncer- 
tainty of purpose. We need to learn that what we 
call ambition is a hindrance, not a help. 

Large unfoldment is the only true aim of life, 
not great achievement or accumulation of material 
results. 

The question is often asked, " How can I know 
my work and place ? " 



EXPRESSION. 2 I 5 

How do the planets find their orbits, and what 
keeps them true? 

As we have said before, they move on the lines 
of least resistance, and we are subject to the same 
governing principle. This line is determined by 
our purpose. 

We alternate continually between a belief in 
fate and an uncomfortable sense of personal respon- 
sibility. 

Destiny and will, and our particular relation to 
them, are the questions that most vex us. We 
find it difficult to adjust these powers to our con- 
trol and satisfaction. They are the columns upon 
which life rests, but the point of juncture in the 
arch that joins them is above the clouds and be- 
yond our mortal sight. 

Our proposition is incomplete. We are under- 
taking higher mathematics before we have mastered 
the tables. 

There are other factors necessary to the solution 
of such questions which are not yet within our 
grasp. At this point faith becomes a scientific 
principle. 

All natural science is based upon the postulate 
of an atom. This is an hypothesis that is not yet 
supported by any evidence of the senses. We 
have never seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched 
an atom. Yet we make it the corner-stone of all 
material science. We predicate its shape, move- 



2l6 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

merits, and combinations. The most powerful micro- 
scope has not as yet revealed its existence, but this 
in no way disturbs our faith. We regard the atom 
as something infinitely small. Why should we not 
accept a law that governs it which is infinitely great ? 
Let us attribute to this government infinite wis- 
dom, power, and benevolence, expressed in an 
unfailing accuracy. This new factor helps us to 
contemplate fate with a sense of personal safety. 
It puts in our hands a magic-lantern which throws 
a flood of light upon one part of our problem. 

Every revelation of science tends to strengthen 
and confirm this theory of orderly government. 

Nature insists upon perfection, and all defective 
types carry the seeds of their own destruction. 
All healthy life perpetuates itself with an increas- 
ing power and momentum. 

We believe that the law that governs the universe 
governs every single planet of its system. We 
must carry this statement further and apply it to 
every detail of the mineral, vegetable, and animal 
kingdoms, else the atoms would move in chaos and 
all life would be erratic and indeterminate. What, 
then, could hold the planets in their orderly move- 
ment? If we accept this view we must include 
the individual life of man in the operation of the 
law. We must also extend it to every moment of 
his existence and every incident of his experience. 
We must choose between absolute government 



EXPRESSION. 2 I 7 

and absolute chaos. There is no middle ground 
conceivable. 

This does not lead us to fatalism in the usual 
understanding of that word. We recognize a 
universal power and with it we identify man's will. 
We perceive that as he unfolds he learns to con- 
centrate and direct all natural forces — that he 
embodies in himself all nature's kingdoms, elements, 
and forms. We are compelled to see in him the 
lawful ruler and ascribe to him both power and 
responsibility, awaiting only his recognition and 
acceptance. 

But before he can be crowned he must take the 
oath of allegiance to his higher self, which is the 
individual expression of an infinite good. Little 
by little man discovers that his limitations are 
altogether those of ignorance and are, therefore, 
wholly mental. Larger recognition brings larger 
demands and the power of appropriation grows 
with the mastery of larger expression. 

Every imperfect and false note that has been 
struck in this attempt of the race to master the 
harmonies of life has left its vibrations in earth's 
atmospheres. 

Science asserts that all vibrations are eternal, 
whether of light or sound. Thus every act of a 
human being must be ineffaceably stamped in his 
surroundings, and every sound remain in the great 
cosmic ocean. 



2l8 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

There are pictured scenes of strife and sacri- 
fice, of cruelty and heroism, of gentleness and 
love ; sights and sounds of an infinite range, 
embracing every note to which the human eye or 
ear can make response. 

There are mists and fogs of thought as well as 
turbulent seas and angry billows. Our bodies 
are subject to an estimated pressure of fifteen 
pounds to the square inch of atmosphere and two 
hundred pounds of ether. Who shall estimate the 
power of the thought currents which continually 
swirl about us, bringing to every mind influences 
of restlessness or peace? 

Our troubled dreams are from these wandering 
impulses impinging on our lower consciousness 
when in a negative condition. Their influence will 
sometimes cling to us on awakening as moisture 
to our garments on a foggy morning at the shore. 
Much of our depression in the early hours of the 
day may be traced to superficial experiences on 
the astral plane. If we will recognize them as of 
no more significance than the passing clouds or 
showers of spring we may easily shake them off 
as we would the water from our clothes. Thought 
climates are as yet unrecognized by meteorol- 
ogists. Yet they are no less real than those we 
seek for the relief of fleshly ills, and they are 
stimulating or depressing to our mental life. They 
are the secret impulses of those that surround us, 



EXPRESSION. 2 1 9 

the subtle emanation of their inmost purpose and 
desire. 

Until one has developed his individuality he is 
constantly subject to these mental currents. As 
his own thought becomes more definite in its aims 
and positive in character he ceases to suffer from 
the thoughts of others. 

When we are ready to yield to others all that 
we can give of loving help we shall not fail of any- 
thing we need in return. The compensation may 
take different form from what we would have 
chosen, but it will be none the less real. It may 
not be so much in the way of gratification as of 
discipline and a lesson in self-control, but what- 
ever it may be it will surely add to the riches of 
our life, for it is the expression of the perfect law 
of equity, and with what measure we mete, it shall 
be measured to us again. When we have given to 
another all it is our privilege to give we will receive 
whatever it is our privilege to get from any person 
with whom we are brought into the relations of 
the home, the office, or society. 

Through such relations we will pass to larger 
and better conditions, or, having fulfilled the pur- 
pose for which we were brought together, our lives 
will now diverge for working out the higher good 
of both. With this conviction we can look back 
without regret and forward without fear. Is it not 
better to frankly recognize this truth and work 



220 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

consciously and intelligently with it than to indulge 
ourselves in passive resentment or personal an- 
tagonism? In moments of clear vision we perceive 
that we have no enemy but ourselves, and that all 
our varied experiences have been the manifesta- 
tion of our unsuspected impulses. 

If suffering brings us to this discovery at last its 
only purpose is fulfilled and we can go on our way 
rejoicing. We can at all times open our ears to 
either harmony or discord, for there is no environ- 
ment yet discovered where either exists without 
the other. 

Through the science of adjustment we learn to 
relate ourselves pleasantly and helpfully to every 
individual and incident that comes into our lives. 
Impatience delays results, while ready acceptance 
hastens them. 

Success is the expression of true individuality. 
None can bestow it on another. None can prevent 
or hinder. It must be won by each of us, and 
through the winning we accomplish our develop- 
ment. This is a simple creed and one that never 
needs to be revised, as every step of progress fur- 
nishes fresh evidence of its truth. 

We talk of love as an emotion, when we ought 
to recognize it as a principle that underlies the 
universe. Emotional love as compared with the 
spiritual principle is as the fleck of foam blown from 
the crest of the wave. It is but a faint suggestion 



EXPRESSION. 221 

of the tranquil depths below which no wind has ever 
ruffled and no sounding-line has ever fathomed. 
True love is a spiritual atmosphere rather than a 
personal impulse. It seeks nothing for itself but 
the opportunity of expression. Jealousy is greed 
of affection. It is the selfish clamor of unloving 
thought. It is a parody of love and always with- 
out excuse. 

To understand life intelligently through all its 
various expressions it is necessary to distinguish 
between cause and occasion. We often confound 
the two. The wind that lays low one forest tree 
only strengthens another in its powers of endur- 
ance. The tree fell not simply because it was in 
the path of the gale, but because it was unsound or 
not deeply rooted. The storm was the occasion 
of its fall, but the real cause was in itself. 

All our difficulties are but tests of our powers. 
None of them are sufficient to explain our failures. 
With every tribulation comes some comforting 
angel who is interested in our triumph and will 
reinforce our strength if we will accept the service 
that he offers. All the good powers of the universe 
are drawn to our side in the day of battle if we 
raise the banner of truth. The only boon truth 
ever asks is the opportunity of expression through 
our lips and lives, that we may receive her 
benediction. 

Truth has never known defeat, and in so far as 



222 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

we ally ourselves with truth do we become invin- 
cible. 

No chains of circumstance can fetter the true 
man. He asks no odds of fortune, and in every 
hour of adversity he expresses power, and calmly 
awaits the victory he knows is sure to come. 



Nothing can be " beyond our strength," though 
much may be beyond our present understanding 
of how to make that strength available. 



EXPRESSION, 223 



Eagerness and indolence are both obstructive 
and result in suffering. 

Nothing can come to us except we draw it. 

Nothing can stay when we let go. 

Nothing can go till it has fulfilled its purpose. 



224 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



Nothing that we can do can bring discredit upon 
truth. 

If truth were dependent upon mortal demon- 
stration for its credit it would long since have suf- 
fered bankruptcy. 

Neither can we make a sacrifice for truth. It 
always compensates abundantly an honest seeker. 



THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 225 

XL 
THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 

Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet : . . . 
neither be ye sorry ; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. 
— Nehemiah viii. 10. 

We cannot play the chords of " success " upon 
an instrument relaxed by disappointment and dis- 
couragement, nor with the harp-strings held at 
nervous tension by anxiety and fear. Doubt and 
longing are destructive of all harmonies. Only a 
masterful confidence in the universal Life and in 
ourselves as its expression can strike the notes of 
power and produce the clear, full tones in which 
true purpose finds complete accomplishment. 

" Be happy and you will be good " is a very 
wise injunction. We may also add, " Through 
happiness you will be successful." It is the nature 
of happiness to radiate and enlarge its expression 
by finding others with whom it can share its joys. 
Goodness and happiness are really interchange- 
able terms. When we have succeeded in obtaining 
happiness for ourselves or others we may be sure 
we have been gaining and bestowing both good- 
ness and power. 

The only trouble with many people is stagna- 



226 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

tion through depression. Their chief lack is mo- 
mentum. A little more forceful motion would 
take them altogether away from their difficulties 
and diseases. They wear their yokes like oxen, 
because they do not realize the power in them- 
selves. Let their realization be awakened, and 
their spiritual will aroused and applied with its 
tremendous energy, and all bonds and obstructions 
will easily fall away from them. 

There is no force that can accomplish this more 
quickly than the thrill of joy and gladness. There 
is no stimulant that is more speedy or thorough in 
its action. It is a natural tonic, and the entire 
system responds to its exhilarating vibrations. 
Anything that arouses confidence in life, with a 
larger sense of its use and beauty, increases 
human energy and prepares the best conditions of 
success in all its undertakings. It is even better to 
build castles in the air than to dwell in caves of 
gloom. The imagination is more worthily em- 
ployed in picturing pleasant things than in brood- 
ing fears and entertaining dark forebodings. It is 
better to " whistle going through the woods " than 
to look for hobgoblins in every shadow. 

We are never left in life with an entirely empty 
cupboard. There is always some little portion of fat 
to eat and sweet to drink, if we will only go our 
way and look about us and not allow the leanness 
of our grief to absorb our thoughts, or our tears 



THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 227 

to blind our eyes and fill every cup with bitter- 
ness. Simple life is very sweet and pleasant to 
a normal nature, even when stripped of everything 
that most consider necessary to happiness. 

If one has awakened to an understanding of the 
real and a power of discernment of the artificial — 
if he has developed the creative instincts of the 
soul — he is no longer swept away by tides and 
currents he cannot control. In joy he finds his 
strength, and no change in externals can deprive 
him of the gladness of to-day. What have I to do 
with the yesterdays or the to-morrows of my life ? 
My responsibility lies strictly in the present. Why 
should I scatter and weaken my thought- forces by 
regretful recollections of the imperfect yesterday 
or anxious anticipation of the uncertain morrow? 
I will concentrate all my energies upon the pass- 
ing hour, and thus will atonement be made for 
the past and grace developed for the future. To- 
day — to-day I live. The grief of yesterday is 
past. To-day I triumph. To-morrow shall find 
me still a victor. 

Let us not look at the shadows that lie behind 
us, but rather at the sunbeams that fall across our 
paths ; for " every shadow points to the sun." We 
can easily lift our feet over the pebbles that lie in 
our road to-day, but we must let our thought dwell 
with the spirit that guides us, — not with the feet 
or the pebble. We are so ready to magnify every 



228 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

trouble. We take life much too seriously. At a 
point a little farther on we will find that the most 
tragic conditions of the present have vanished 
like the mists of the morning when the sun has 
climbed to its meridian, and we will hardly be 
able to recollect even the cause of our hap- 
piness — so expansive is the nature of exist- 
ence. 

True life is an ever-present opportunity. It is 
not concerned with past or future. It is in the 
lowlands only that we suffer from the malaria of 
memory and fear, and our spiritual perceptions are 
bedimmed and paralyzed. We have become like 
the sleepers in the enchanted palace. Then comes 
the Deliverer; the Messiah — the joy of the 
Christmas morning — the awakening of the spirit- 
ual nature ; and we enter upon the road that leads 
from Bethlehem to Paradise. 

One does not need a battlefield on which to 
prove his heroism. The opportunity is offered 
daily in the home, the shop, the office, and the 
factory. Great souls need never be beggars of 
" circumstance " to manifest their quality. They 
are masters of all conditions, and respond with 
equal cheerfulness to all demands of daily living. 

We cannot inventory the resources of our life. 
Its unexpected opportunities continually surprise 
us. They are not limited to any age, condition, or 
place. Our boldest demands and expectations are 



THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 220, 

but paltry when compared with what an awakened 
spirit soon makes actual. 

We too often hasten through the passing days 
with but scanty enjoyment or stolid endurance, 
looking hazily to some distant time for the fulfil- 
ment of desire. The best conditions for future 
happiness lie in the largest possible appreciation 
of the present. This is a truth we all admit; yet 
we spend our lives in following happiness as a 
phantom and blinding ourselves to present good. 
There are wells of water in the dreariest desert; 
yet many travellers have perished chasing a 
mirage. 

If we wish to develop unlimited power we must 
make no conditions to right conduct. We must 
not insist upon the fulfilment of our personal 
wishes before we will consent to happiness or 
faith. We must cheerfully accept all surroundings, 
all " circumstances " of the present hour, as the 
best possible for our unfoldment. We must coop- 
erate heartily with every difficulty or seeming 
obstacle, with entire confidence in the rule of the 
Eternal Equities, believing also that — 

' ' That which is good 

Doth pass to better — best." 

We should never contend with a fear. It is a 
waste of time and effort, and as useless as to argue 
with hysteria. We need to establish firmly in our 



230 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

minds the thought of our own sovereignty. We 
never fear that which we know we can control, 
and we are here for the purpose of learning the 
mastery of what we call Fate. Let us snap our 
fingers at all the " Devils " of the ages — the 
formulated fears of humankind. Get thee behind 
me, thou Devil of Theosophy — " Karma; " thou 
Devil of Astrology — ■ " planetary influence ; " thou 
spiritualistic Devil — " obsession ; " and thou Devil 
of Christian Science — " malicious magnetism"! 
Get thee behind me also thou great Dragon of 
Science — u heredity " ! In comparison with these, 
one could almost welcome back again the old 
orthodox Devil — " Satan." I will not be bullied 
by the threat of malicious magnetism from the 
stars, from other persons, or from my own dead 
past of former incarnations. 

Are we to forget that in the manger of our 
spiritual nature lies the " Prince of Peace," who is 
to put all things under his feet? If we turn to the 
contemplation of the divine power we embody, all 
our fears will pass away like the shadows of the 
night. Fear is a mental mirage. It is an optical 
illusion- — a refraction of certain lines and angles 
due to our mental atmospheric conditions and to 
false lights that result in grotesque distortion of 
the real. 

Strong armies have the least fighting to do to 
gain their ends. Heavily massed forces do not 



THE POWER OE GLADNESS. 23 I 

follow the guerilla methods. Their strength is so 
evident that the weaker foe retires before their 
advance, with but faint demonstration of resistance. 
It is the feeble and broken ranks that are always 
the most harassed with conflict, and a retreat is 
almost sure to be disastrous. 

All this is true in our daily experience. The 
only direction in which we can safely move is 
forward. Success is determined by our force of 
character and strength of resolution. When life 
is disturbed by perpetual conflict we may know 
that our method of campaigning is at fault. We 
have failed to bring our reserves to the front and 
to mass and direct our forces wisely. We have 
not understood and tested the resources upon 
which we could have drawn ; else our advance 
would have been less difficult. 

There is no greater source of weakness than to 
dwell upon the power of an adversary until our 
courage has been undermined. General Grant 
prepared for battle by assuring himself that the 
commanders of the opposing forces were quite as 
much afraid of him as he could possibly be of 
them. Many men persist courageously in the 
conviction of their inability. It is the only 
thing in which they fully believe, and every 
obstacle they meet is magnified by their erratic 
fancy and their feeble will. This is the worst 
possible form of self-conceit. It is the rankest 
kind of atheism. 



232 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Let us snatch the trumpet from the lifeless 
hands of the dead self — defeated and slain on the 
field of battle, or sorely wounded with disappoint- 
ment and grief. Let us raise it again to our lips and 
sound anew the brave notes of the charge. Let 
the bugle-tones ring out across the field, stirring 
every pulse to a forward movement, though we 
ourselves be faint and weary. Let the blasts be 
clear, and strong, with no uncertain sound, and 
many a wavering one shall be thrilled with a new 
life and confidence, and aroused to seize the 
spiritual victory that is assured to every determined 
soul. We will never sound the recall. Let us 
turn away from the grave of every disappointed 
hope, not with a dirge, but with a cheerful 
quickstep and triumphant march, like soldiers re- 
turning from the burial of a comrade — ready with 
brave hearts for the fresh conflict of the morrow. 

In the study of vocal music the singer does 
not stop discouraged if he fails to touch immedi- 
ately the high note struck upon the instrument. 
He tries again and again until he learns to reach 
and hold it with his voice ; and then he tries a 
higher key and enters upon fresh efforts. At first 
when we sound the note of truth, the voice breaks 
in trying to give expression to it in our lives. 
Shall we therefore chide ourselves or one another, 
or shall we possess our souls in patience and keep 
to the score until we have trained ourselves to com- 



THE POWER OE GLADNESS. 233 

pass the high notes easily? We can learn to " live 
the life." It is not beyond the power of any one. 
We may choose our own time and methods ; let us 
allow to others the same freedom. 

The keenest pleasure we receive through our 
sense life is but the faintest suggestion of the glad- 
ness of the spirit. Instead of distrusting and con- 
demning the sensuous nature, and strangling its 
expressions, we should understand its spiritual cor- 
respondence. Spirit is altogether sensibility and 
knowledge. 

Infinite peace and power are developed through 
the recognition of unlimited possessions. In this 
there is no fever of unrest— -no eagerness of 
desire — because there is no sense of time or space, 
nor fear of loss. 

Many persons have never yet been more than 
half born into their material forms. They are but 
sadly imperfect expressions of the spiritual beauty, 
power, and freedom that belong to them. We 
need not be afraid of too much happiness. Our 
most ecstatic glimpses have been but as moon- 
beams of an Arctic night compared with the broad 
noon of an eternal day. 

Sleep and death are as the entrances of tunnels 
into darkness, from which we emerge to sunny 
landscapes of pleasant valleys, breezy table-lands, 
and mountain-peaks. In the enjoyment of the 
new experience we think no more of the shadows 



234 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

through which we passed to reach it. The dark 
tunnel was but a brief incident in a long and 
delightful journey. 

So are many of the experiences from which we 
shrink and in which we can see no necessity of the 
suffering that comes to ourselves and others. If 
we could perceive the vistas that are opened 
through these tunnel-days and the landscapes that 
lie beyond, we could find causes of gladness even 
in the shadows and feel no hardships in the journey. 

To overcome disease or difficulty we must strike 
a vibration higher or lower than the one prevail- 
ing on the plane of its manifestation. It is useless 
to attack it on its own ground. This is like playing 
" tug of war" in which contending parties pull in 
opposite directions, and alternately gain and lose 
because their strength is evenly matched. 

A nervous tension needs to be relaxed by strik- 
ing a lower keynote. A depressed condition can 
be stimulated by a higher. 

The everlasting problem is to maintain the bal- 
ance between positive and negative conditions. 

If the eagle's wings were unequal in length or 
power he could not direct his flight with certainty, 
or follow the guidance of his will and eye. 

Mind and matter are the wings upon which we 
rise to higher conditions through the guidance of 
the will. These factors must be balanced and 
adjusted to each other. They are not essentially 



THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 2$ $ 

at variance. We regard them as on unfriendly 
terms. We undertake to ignore or neutralize 
one or the other. The materialist is afraid to 
study spiritual conditions. The spiritual-minded 
person is often fearful of his own material and sense 
nature. 

We cannot poise ourselves upon one wing alone. 
We are compelled to recognize and respect equally 
the animal and spiritual natures before we can pro- 
gress in direct lines. A bird with a broken wing, 
a boat with a broken oar, will move but in a circle. 

Freedom involves complete command of both 
body and mind by the awakened spirit. 

As long as we hold any fear of what we call our 
lower or our higher nature we have not been eman- 
cipated. 

We are often afraid of the largeness of the liberty 
we profess to seek, else why should we shrink from 
death, which we imagine will divest us of all influ- 
ence of matter? We have lived in so narrow a 
horizon and so dim a light that we find our vision 
is but feeble when we lift our eyes to the sun. 

We are still cave-dwellers, though we excavate 
our caves a little higher up the mountains where 
formerly we dug them in the valleys. 

There are metaphysical as well as sensual caverns. 
The difference between the cliff-dweller and the 
mound-builder is only a matter of altitude. They 
are very much alike in the furnishings of their 



236 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

abodes. We have not yet learned how to build 
houses without hands eternal in the heavens. 

Our petty theories, whether materialistic or 
metaphysical, we will not find available for build- 
ing-stones in spiritual mansions. Theories will 
change and crumble. Only principles remain un- 
alterable. No principle can ever fail, though man 
may fail to hold himself in right relation to it. 

There can never be such a thing as " a principle 
at stake." It is impossible to make an " extreme 
statement " of a principle. The extremes of truth 
are too far off for us ever to get within sight of 
them in our present state of objective being. 

Our capacity for enjoyment is not sufficiently 
developed to expose us to any danger of excess of 
gladness. We very soon find that we have to 
catch and cook our own fish in life or go without 
our supper. If the fish are small and the cooking 
underdone we cannot blame any one but ourselves. 
This is the severe logic of evolution. 

Search as diligently as we may, we will not dis- 
cover in material things the key to satisfaction or 
the answer to our perplexities. Spirit alone can 
solve our riddles, for the reason that we are spirit- 
ual beings. 

Eighteen hundred years ago a man stood by the 
banks of the Jordan preaching to the multitudes. 

" I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
The kingdom of heaven is at hand." 



THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 237 

He stood in the wilderness of Judea. The spot 
was a fit type of the dreary waste which had been 
made by Roman tyranny and Hebrew superstition. 
Church and state had combined to lay heavy bur- 
dens on men's shoulders and take all the joy and 
gladness out of life by their exactions. The won- 
derful civilization of that day had resulted through 
its selfishness, corruption, tyranny, and greed in 
making life itself a wilderness. 

Into this desert came a voice of hope, a voice of 
praise, a voice proclaiming a kingdom mightier 
than that of Rome ; a power greater than the Jew- 
ish priesthood. The kingdom of heaven was at 
hand, with its message of deliverance, the opening 
of prison doors and promise of liberty to the cap- 
tive. 

In this nineteenth century we hear again the 
voice of truth commanding that the oppressed go 
free. It finds humanity in a wilderness as dreary 
as that of Judea, enmeshed in an artificial civil- 
ization as grievous and burdensome as that of 
Rome, tyrannized by false religions as empty in 
their ceremonials and exactions as the creeds of 
ancient Judaism. And the voice arouses us to a 
new confidence in life, for it proclaims that the 
kingdom for which we have waited so long is the 
kingdom of man's own royal self-hood ; that it is 
open to him whenever he chooses to ascend the 
throne. It declares that the only bondage to which 



238 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

he ever really bows is the tyranny of his own mis- 
taken thought. Why should not the oppressed 
go free ? 

The world is recovering to-day from the de- 
pression of a chronic hysteria into which it has 
been plunged by the religious teachings of the past 
and to which the mental tonics of new thought are 
being most successfully applied. 

It is indeed true that the soul can create for 
itself a world into which pain and sorrow cannot 
enter. Is not this the only heaven we shall ever 
know ? We may enjoy it to-day if we assent. 
The dogma of election is true, but it is we who 
elect ourselves to everlasting life or make our- 
selves liable (in the words of the Westminster 
Catechism) " to all miseries in this life — to death 
itself and to the pains of hell." 

The soul continually pleads, " Come, ye, blessed 
of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world." 

We scarcely realize the hold that superstition 
has on us — in the way in which we regard life 
and death. Long after our intellectual assent has 
been withdrawn and we have begun to protest 
against the irrational views which were impressed 
upon us in our early years by the traditions of the 
elders, we are unconsciously dominated by those 
first impressions. 

Under these influences we still regard with great 



THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 239 

solemnity all the little incidents and trials of our 
daily living. 

We exaggerate their importance and give them 
a fictitious significance. 

When we resent and resist our difficulties we 
provide the most favorable mental soil for their 
rooting and growth. The germ which would have 
easily passed over us harmlessly finds lodgment 
and nurture in our minds and rapidly externalizes 
itself upon our bodies. We suffer only because 
we fail to transmit the harmonies which crowd 
continually upon us and would have their passage 
through us if we would permit. We insist upon 
holding to the bass notes when we ought to let 
them go. 

We could change the vulgar noise of our en- 
vironment to heavenly music by opening our ears to 
the strains of the invisible choirs. Exaggerated 
seriousness is worse than much frivolity. 

Serious natures are in danger of excessive tensity. 
This is the first symptom of disease. 

The tree of close fibre is snapped by the hur- 
ricane that passes harmlessly over yielding plants 
which bend easily to the wind. Nothing from 
without can hurt us when we have learned the 
independence of true life. Nor can we suffer from 
the want of anything beyond our own resources. 

When the soul is insulated from all outward 
conditions it manifests interior power. 



240 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

It does not need to practise the musical scores 
of others or blend itself with any artificial keynote 
of legend or tradition. Its own utterances are mu- 
sical as the flowing of waters or the song of birds. 

Nothing outside itself is authoritative to the true 
life. No vows of obedience are necessary except 
to the higher self. When we move forward with 
the will and the step of the conqueror we leave far 
behind us all the hosts of difficulty that seemed to 
compass us about. 

When we dwell upon the severity of law we 
forget that its inexorable action proves the infinite 
tenderness of the love which it fulfils. 

Life is a succession of wonderful transformation 
scenes, producing marvellous results in their unex- 
pected combinations. 

Thought is the scene-shifter and stage carpenter. 
Nothing is beyond its skill and power in the mo- 
ments of its highest concentration. 

When we allow ourselves to move on railroad 
tracks of habit the rails get smooth, and the 
wheels turn without friction in the habitual direc- 
tion. 

If they do not carry us through a pleasant 
country we must relay the track of thought, and 
learn to apply our brakes and switches, for the 
thinker himself is the engineer. 

If we will change the hungering to receive to a 
hungering to give we will close the avenues of 



THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 24 1 

pain, and become receptive to a higher good, 
which will find in us the expression it is always 
seeking. 

There is great danger in constant dissatisfaction. 

Sooner or later it will involve the health or 
finances, or both, for it destroys the mental bal- 
ance, and impairs the judgment. 

If we indulge ourselves in sadness or impatience 
we may be always sure our sin will find us out. 

Impatience opens the door to hysteria, anger, 
and insanity, which mark regular stages in the loss 
of self-control. 

If we will brush the dust of selfishness from the 
lenses through which we look at life, we will find 
illumination for every emergency. Our spiritual 
vision will never be dimmed. 

Out of the blackness of our night a star shines 
forth. It comes as a new thought suggesting a 
new confidence. We follow its glimmer, only to 
discover that it is the same star that the " wise 
men " of old saw in the East. Across the desert 
trail of our life it leads to a new Bethlehem. Its 
light grows stronger as it brings us to the birth- 
place of the Christ within ourselves. The spiritual 
man is the Emmanuel who embodies all the poten- 
cies of life. When we once have recognized 
this royal self and given it dominion over us we 
find and tread the way of power. In every life the 
personal man is crucified, that the Divine may 



242 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

manifest its glory in the resurrection ; and in the 
day of his awakening he knows that he has 
received — 



Beauty for ashes ; 
The oil of joy for mourning ; 
The garments of praise 
For the spirit of heaviness." 



The powers of will and concentration are shown 
in vice and disease as well as in virtue and health. 

They manifest perversion of force and not failure. 

Ifs, Buts, and Ands are always links in our 
thought fetters. 



THE POWER OF GLADNESS. 243 



Concentration is poise of mind rather than forced 
action. 

Repose of spirit is absolutely essential to the 
highest expression of power. 

We should neither dream through the day nor 
wake through the night ; in both these ways we 
scatter force. 



244 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



The higher self knows no fear and sees no 
obstacles. 

It passes everywhere unhurt. All difficulties 
change into walls of defence behind it. 



A PLEA FOR MATTER. 245 



XII. 

A PLEA FOR MATTER. 

' There was a man in our town, 
And he was wondrous wise : 
He jumped into a bramble bush 
And scratched out both his eyes. 
•And when he saw his eyes were out, 
With all his might and main 
He jumped into another bush 
And scratched them in again. 11 

— Mother Goose. 



A FRIEND in the West used often to amuse him- 
self in asking and answering this conundrum : 

"What is matter? Never mind." 

"What is mind? No matter." 

I quote him to illustrate two of the popular illu- 
sions, for mind and matter are no longer regarded 
by advanced thinkers as different elements of life. 

We are continually proving their identity. It 
has long been our habit to set up these two factors 
as opposing forces. 

We are emerging from the dark ages of mate- 
rialistic thought. 

We have felt that we were bound and limited 
by matter, that we were held to the animal plane 
by the dominion of material things even after we 



246 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

have recognized the fact that we are spiritual 
beings. We have felt that our highest glory in 
the future would be to pass far away from the 
necessity and use of matter. Of late the popular 
thought has been showing a reaction. 

Mind is asserting itself as the governing power 
even in the mortal life. Materialism has had its 
day both in science and religion. There is danger 
in this reaction as great as that we have escaped. 
That classic rhyme of Mother Goose is again 
proving true. History repeats itself. We put 
out our eyes in the bramble bush of materialism 
and now seek to scratch them in again in another 
bramble bush of most irrational idealism. 

The conflict between mind and matter has long 
been going on in our planetary arena. The time 
has come at last when matter itself is getting bul- 
lied. It no longer clears the ring as formerly, and 
impales everything upon its horns. 

A recently developed school of metaphysicians 
impudently asserts that it has no real existence. 

It denies it even the respect of recognition ex- 
cept to denounce it as a will-o'-the-wisp. 

This should entitle it to sympathy, and it is time 
we came to its relief. In the past men have denied 
the existence of spirit and taken away our wings. 

To-day in denying matter they do not leave us a 
leg to stand on. Is not one illusion as bad as the 
other? We have suffered much in an unreasonable 



A PLEA FOR MATTER. 247 

emphasis upon the exclusive reality of the senses. 
We will continue to suffer if we seek to ignore 
matter or denounce it as a thing unworthy to be 
recognized by spirit. We have as good reason to 
distrust a teacher or philosophy that defines life 
as a dream and matter as non-existent as those 
that assert that there is no reality outside material 
form. 

Matter and mind are two sides of the triangle 
of life. Whichever we choose to study first will 
bring us surely to a recognition of the other. 

The scientist comes to a point where he is com- 
pelled to erect an altar to the unknown God, while 
the spiritualist finds it necessary to become a 
student of the science that he has perhaps de- 
spised. 

Nowhere is superstition more prevalent than in 
materialistic minds. On the other hand, there are 
none who show deeper concern for the welfare and 
comfort of their bodies than those metaphysicians 
who deny the reality of matter. 

We live alternately in two very different phases 
of experience, and often they so blend that "one 
world at a time " becomes a real impossibility. 

Doubtless all conditions have illusions that are 
peculiar to themselves. One who has dropped 
the coarser body is not living a more real life 
than one who wears the earthly garments. It 
isn't necessary for a man to deny the reality of 



248 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

his overcoat because he has at the same time a 
good suit of underwear. Neither the underwear 
nor overcoat is in itself sufficient for all times and 
places. The illusions of what we call "the other 
life " are as bewildering, no doubt, as those that 
especially belong to this. If this is a school-room 
in which we study coarser matter, that is one in 
which we study sublimated matter. Life has many 
mansions, and, so far as we know, they are all 
school-rooms. The playgrounds do not belong 
exclusively to either state of existence. It is as 
much a privilege to the spiritual being to try its 
legs in the material world as to try its wings in 
the astral. All religions have called life a 
dream, but when and where do the realities exist 
if not here and now? This is a world of affairs, 
and in it we work out by day the lessons we have 
studied in the world of mind at night. By and 
by we shall remain longer in the higher grade, 
and find there too affairs in which we shall 
apply the knowledge we have gained in matter. 
All power is the expression of knowledge. This 
is attained only through experience. Hence our 
need of constantly changing relations toward all 
the factors of existence, mental and material. 

As soon as we have gained adjustment to one 
situation we encounter another, demanding the 
exercise of unused forces. In this way our illu- 
sions are dispelled as the sun of our consciousness 



A PLEA FOR MATTER. 249 

climbs higher in the heavens. The domain of 
matter is not of necessity a twilight land. If we 
are ready to open our eyes to the light we will 
find the high noon of spirit here as well as 
elsewhere. 

Mortal life is not a dream, except to those who 
prefer to sleep, and to such will come an hour of 
rude awakening. There are many dreamers, also, 
on the astral planes. The passage of the Styx 
does not serve always to dispel illusions. It some- 
times deepens them. 

Mental treatment is as much a necessity after 
death as before to those who prefer to believe that 
the actualities of life belong to future states of 
being. The horizon line of the spirit is ever a 
vanishing perspective. Forever it recedes as we 
advance. 

If we live in the belief of necessary bondage to 
either mind or matter we must suffer the penalty 
we have imposed upon ourselves, till we awaken to 
the truth of freedom — individual and universal. 

After studying navigation in the schools we seek 
the open sea to put its principles into operation. 
When we have finished the academical course of 
civil engineering we need the fields and forests for 
our theodolite. 

The botanist and gelogist return from the moun- 
tains and plains to the quiet of the laboratory to 
analyze and classify the specimens with which they 



250 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRATL. 

have filled their satchels. So does the soul 
exchange its tranquil home in the realms of spirit 
for the more turbulent activities of material life, 
where it may demonstrate its powers, and so does 
it return again with its garnered sheaves of earthly 
knowledge to the contemplation of its triumphs 
and defeats. There are always two voices sound- 
ing in our ears, the voice of fear and the voice of 
confidence. One is the clamor of the senses, the 
other is the whispering of the higher self. If we 
listen to the first we are unnerved. If we give 
heed to the other, we develop power and become 
invincible. When the young sailor climbs to the 
topsail yards for the first time, and looks down 
upon the narrow deck of his little craft rocking so 
far below him, he sometimes grows dizzy at the 
unaccustomed height and is in danger of falling. 
His shipmates, perceiving his danger, will call out 
to " look aloft." He turns his eyes to the great 
blue above, forgets the swaying ship, and feels 
himself at home in the wide expanse of sky that 
stretches out around him. It appeals to his 
higher sense of soul. His eye grows steady. He 
recovers his balance, and gains a firm hold on the 
foot-ropes. 

" O Lord, thy sea is so great and my little boat 
so small," prayed the old monk; " grant, I pray 
thee, that thy great sea may not swallow up my 
little boat." 



A PLEA FOR MATTER. 25 I 

When we look aloft we accept both sea and 
boat as realities and recognize the truth that the 
soul is the greatest reality of all and controls all 
else ; thus we place ourselves in right relations to 
both mind and matter. 

When science has admitted that the atom is 
intelligent and indestructible it has transmuted 
matter into mind, for we know of nothing else than 
mind that can make these claims. 

Matter and mind are twin offspring of one 
parent, spirit. 

" Every molecule of matter," says Professor Dol- 
bear, " sets the whole visible and invisible universe 
in a tremor through its radiating waves. A crystal 
cannot be turned over in the hand without affect- 
ing everything outside of it." 

Matter is a vehicle of sensation, and through 
sensation we learn the material lessons of this 
school of Earth. 

There is sensation in matter because there is 
mind, and there is always matter present in sensa- 
tion through the movement of the atmospheric or 
etheric waves. 

Matter offers the resistance necessary for dem- 
onstration of the superior power of mind. It 
is the substance that we came to study and to 
control. 

This resistance of matter is as necessary as 
atmosphere and wings to the flight of the bird. 



252 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

In earth we find the plastic substance in which 
to study the art of living. 

If matter had no existence, how could we have 
an objective life? 

Through matter we learn all that we know of 
history. 

In the material ruins of ancient cities, temples, 
and palaces we come in touch with the far past. 
Through its tablets and monuments we acquaint 
ourselves with the world's records until such time 
as we can read the astral pages upon which all 
history is inscribed. 

In fossils and petrifactions we learn the story of 
evolution. 

Through aerolite and solar spectrum we discover 
the similarity and difference of other worlds in 
their material conditions. 

There is no matter without motion. There is 
no motion without mind. Atoms and thoughts 
are alike magnetic, and through the selecting prin- 
ciple attract all other atoms and thoughts of the 
same vibration. Matter is mind at a slower rate of 
vibration. Mind is matter at a higher rate. Spirit 
is infinitely more rapid than either and rules both. 

It is as disastrous to have too little respect for 
matter as to have too much. If we appreciated 
it better we would value more highly the power 
of mind that governs it. It is as wrong to 
distrust our bodily organs or our fortunes as to 



A PLEA FOR MATTER. 253 

distrust our minds. The body we despise will 
shrink away from us and lose its power and beauty. 
The fortunes we neglect and spurn will quickly 
pass to other hands. 

The larger the development of mind the larger 
will be its expression in material brain tissue. 

When we have mastered matter we will have 
mastered death, and signed our own emancipation 
proclamation. 

Until that task has been achieved we have not 
completed our material studies. Between the 
highest vibration that reaches the ear, and the 
lowest vibration that reaches the eye, there is an 
immense and unexplored domain. 

We have as yet no senses that can come in con- 
tact with it and translate its phenomena. 

With only five senses very imperfectly devel- 
oped, slaves of matter as we are to-day in many 
ways, are there no lessons worthy our attention 
to tempt us back for other incarnations? 

Have we so mastered the mathematics of this 
planet that we are ready now to triangulate the 
universe? The purpose of life should be the dis- 
covery of our real relations to the environment we 
have drawn about us. 

True life in matter is simple and painless. 
Normal living is a delight when we understand that 
there is more of everything we want than we can 
possibly require. 



2 54 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Mind cannot sink in the sea of matter. There 
is nothing that can drown or starve us but our 
fears. 

Why should the philosophy of reembodiment, 
v/hich has been always held by the larger part 
of the world, including its most distinguished 
minds, be so distasteful to a few who have not until 
recently been made familiar with its teachings? 

Because we have learned one or even a dozen of 
the three thousand tongues of human kind, are we 
ready to converse with angels, and be enrolled in 
the schools of the hierarchies? Is one short term 
sufficient for us? Have we in one brief life 
sounded the depths and scaled the heights of 
human knowledge? What do we really know of 
life on higher or on lower scales than those to 
which we were born? Can the peasant and the 
sovereign, the scholar and the tramp, adjust them- 
selves to one another's hardships, responsibilities, 
and opportunities, and apply to them the principles 
they have found useful in their own? 

Is the pupil who has been only through the 
simple tables of arithmetic prepared for the calculus 
and conic sections? How far have we advanced 
in the control of matter while we are mastered by 
famine and tornado, to say nothing of the extra 
cup of coffee at our breakfast table, or our fear 
of being kept awake at night because our tea is 
a trifle " strong"? This planet offers infinitely 



A PLEA FOR MATTER. 2$$ 

greater opportunities of knowledge and happiness 
than most have discovered. We have latent within 
us such power over matter as we have but just 
begun to dream. 

In the scheme of creation we shall ourselves 
rank as creators, with ability to disintegrate and 
reintegrate at will such forms as we shall choose 
to bring into visible existence. We have hardly 
begun to fathom the latent energies of either 
matter or mind. We have but recently dis- 
covered new properties in the atmosphere itself, 
and formed new theories of light. We are con- 
tinually gaining evidence of the action of forces 
we have not even named. The wealth of material 
energy is beyond our classification, like the 
unnamed peaks of the Rocky Mountains that 
never yet have been explored. 

We have not yet obtained possession of this 
objective life from which many appear so anxious 
to get away. If we had mastered matter we 
should find in it a greater satisfaction. With 
perfect strength and gladness in living, we 
would not nurse vain longings for a heavenly life. 
In these ways we acknowledge our defeat. We 
have fallen far short of perfect physical expression. 
We have not learned the earthly things and 
are not ready for the heavenly. The law of love 
works in matter as well as mind, and evolution 
tends always to perfection of species. 



256 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

As long as matter in any form can make us 
afraid we are but raw apprentices. We have 
named the wild beasts, but we have not subdued 
them. We have inherited the garden of Eden, but 
we have not found its possibilities of cultivation, 
— only its trials and temptations. As long as 
we fancy ourselves dependent upon matter in any 
form for happiness we are only lackeys and not 
lords. 

Our relation to matter is that of the sculptor to 
his clay. 

The artist fashions the form in which he wishes 
to express some thought. He models and re- 
models it until his purpose has been perfected. 
Then he begins his work in the more enduring 
stone or bronze or marble which will admit of 
more complete expression. Our present work is 
in the modelling-room. When we have gained 
such mastery of matter that we can vitalize it with 
our thought at will we shall no doubt pass 
on to higher expression. Meanwhile we get 
the best results through confidence in our ability 
to choose and power to direct our lives. We are 
truly the architects of our own fortunes and should 
no longer seek to shelter ourselves behind the 
superstitions of " heredity " and " fate." 

Every man is a " self-made man." He builds 
the temple that his soul inhabits. Whatever its 
beauties or deformities, they are the manifestation 



A PLEA FOR MATTER. 257 

of his own thought in the past, — even though that 
past has faded from his recollection. 

There are unexplored areas of matter in the 
human brain and body as well as in the planet we 
inhabit. Very few of our motor centres have been 
localized yet in the brain to the satisfaction of the 
scientific mind. Science itself has given no com- 
plete definition of matter. It has named certain 
properties, such as cohesion and gravitation. It 
has discovered that every particle attracts every 
other particle, and that the law of specific gravity 
governs the relations of one mass to another. 

Matter is the matrix of mind. It receives the 
impress of the thought and expresses it in form. 
As Ovid says, " The underworld receives the image. 
The spirit seeks the stars." 

Matter and mind are necessary to one another 
for expression of spirit. Each provides us with 
lenses for the study of the other. 

We should neither fear nor hate, despise or love 
either matter or mind, but recognize in both the 
servants of soul. 

In the Canary Islands there are but few forests 
and little verdure. 

When the Spaniards landed there some centuries 
ago they cut down the trees and the springs 
dried up. The springs were fed by the trees and 
in their turn they watered them. The forests 
absorbed the moisture of the atmosphere. That 



258 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

of the soil was vaporized and drawn into the 
clouds, to be returned again in showers. Such 
is the beautiful circle of nature — a type of the 
reciprocal relations of matter, mind, and spirit, 
each necessary to the complete expression of the 
other. 

In our western world we sometimes enthrone 
material forces and, like the old Ephesians, fall 
down and worship our great " Diana." We say, 
''Cotton is king ! " " Wheat is king ! " " Corn is 
king! " "Gold is king! " 

We talk of the "Almighty Dollar," and yet we 
know in our hearts that these things have no 
power except that conferred upon them by the 
human mind. Mere puppets, all of them, and 
pitiably weak and helpless in themselves. Like 
the lay figures of the artist, we invest them with a 
transient glory and fictitious life, that they may 
serve us for a day. 

The old Greek stories taught that man should 
live above sensation and be indifferent to pleasure 
and pain. Epicurus claimed, upon the other hand, 
that everything was good that gave man pleasure, 
and everything that gave him pain was evil. May 
we not embody both these teachings in our new 
philosophy and recognize the use of all sensation 
in the development of spiritual consciousness ? 
The human soul must not be wrecked on shoals 
of matter, or blown off its course by winds of 



A PLEA FOR MATTER. 259 

doctrine. Our greatest dangers are not those we 
see or feel. 

When we understand matter it can no longer 
crucify us. 

We must needs become lords of life and death. 
When we can truly say of the body, " I have 
power to lay it down and I have power to take it 
again," we shall have finished our course. When 
that point is reached we shall be invulnerable to 
all material forces, superior to all the elements, 
fearless of all earthly conditions. 

Before we can gain this power we must change 
our attitude toward matter, and what we have 
ignorantly called its laws. 

We have been trampled by its hoofs till we 
have thought that matter was our enemy. We 
have denounced it as the foe of spiritual life and 
have resented the necessity of living in a material 
body in a material world. We have sought to 
punish and starve the senses in the vain delusion 
that we would thus give satisfaction to the spiritual 
nature. Such experiments have never been tried 
successfully. 

When the tides of life have brought us any 
good it must be quickly seized and used, else the 
ebb carries it out again beyond our reach. We 
should be friendly in our attitude to everything we 
meet. 

We should welcome and enjoy the material life 



26o DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

in order to accomplish the highest development of 
the spiritual nature. Growth comes always through 
satisfaction. We give the child toys in its nursery 
days, and do not keep it in a state of perpetual 
unrest. Let us make the body comfortable in every 
reasonable way, in order to secure the freedom of 
the mind. Thus will we avoid needless conflict, 
and gain a larger control of both mind and body, 
while we move steadily forward toward the abso- 
lute mastery of both. This is not a plea for indo- 
lence or self-indulgence, but for an orderly and 
reasonable life in which mind and body shall find 
their true relations to each other, and learn obe- 
dience to the will of the soul. Soul power 
manifests itself in the largest degree of opulence, 
health, and happiness, and not in poverty, asceti- 
cism, and disease. When we have learned to live 
we will find the body an organ of wondrous power, 
and never a clog or hindrance. 

It will be both palace and temple, and never a 
prison house. We will find wings in its feet and 
brains in its finger-tips. Fear and helplessness 
will be impossible. A constant and buoyant glad- 
ness is the right expression of true life. Life on 
the material plane offers every possible facility of 
spiritual development which we can ever require. 
As long as we are dissatisfied at any point we have 
failed to learn the lessons set before us, and are in 
no state of mind to find happiness elsewhere. 



A PLEA FOR MATTER, 26 1 

Our health and fortunes suffer through our 
failure to recognize the opportunities of to-day. 

Right here in the world of matter are the 
building-stones of the New Jerusalem. The 
quarries lie all about us. All that we wish to 
manifest can be done here and now. All that we 
wish to possess lies close at hand, even to jewelled 
crowns of power, and the sceptre of archangels. 
Should we go on our way whimpering and calling 
life a dreary pilgrimage, and longing to go " home 
to God" ? Is not this world fit for the palace 
of any Deity of which the human mind can con- 
ceive? 

We cannot believe in God and refuse to believe 
in matter. 

We cannot study matter and not find God. 

Nature feeds us upon all sides. We draw our 
life through millions of pores, and give expression 
to it in diverse and wonderful ways. 

We cannot increase our power over matter by 
denying its existence and revising the dictionary. 

Matter is objective mind. Mind is subjective 
matter. 

If we had vivid realization of the forces we 
have been accustomed to employ as spirit on the 
subjective planes of our existence, we would find 
no difficulty in manifesting the same power in the 
objective life. It is always our doubts that para- 
lyze our energies. 



262 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

Power is the purpose of life. Law is its 
expression. Man must master law and become 
a law unto himself before he can manifest the full 
freedom of power. Nothing but himself can fix 
his limitations. Resentment of trouble shows that 
the soul instinctively knows the needlessness of 
suffering in any form. 

Imagination cannot outstrip the power of execu- 
tion. Large conceptions of the soul's potencies 
speedily manifest themselves in material life. 

It is impossible to overestimate the power of 
spirit or raise too high the standards of true 
idealism. 

The present is as infinite as the past or future. 

We may have full assurance that man is uncon- 
ditioned being — " existence absolute" When this 
central truth is once embodied, man and God 
become inseparably united. 

The Son of man is the Son of God. 



It is not conceit to realize and claim our spiritual 
powers. 

It is only the egotism of the personal man that 
ever doubts or denies them. 



A PLEA TOR MATTER. 263 



We call ourselves practical when our actions 
appeal to the sense life, and their good results are 
felt or heard or seen. 

We are never truly practical except when we 
have learned to govern and apply our highest 
thought. 



264 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 



All devils are friendly. 

They test our power and reveal our weakness. 

Many of man's highest revelations come to him 
through his hurts and bruises. 

The temptation of devils always precedes an 
evolution of force. 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 26$ 



XIII. 

THE SONG OF LIFE. 

" Strains musical, flowing through ages, now reaching 

hither, 
I take to your reckless and composite chords, add to 

them, and cheerfully pass them forward.' 11 

— Walt Whitman. 

Listen to the song of Life. 

Store in your memory the melody you hear. 

Learn from it the lesson of harmony. 

Only fragments of the great song come to your ears 
while yet you are but man. But if you listen to it remember 
it faithfully, so that nothing which has reached you is lost, 
and endeavor to learn from it the meaning of the mystery 
which surrounds you. In time you will need no teacher. 
For as the individual has voice so has that in which the 
individual exists. Life itself has speech and is never silent, 
and its utterance is not, as you that are deaf may suppose, a 
cry. It is a song. Learn from it that you are a part of the 
harmony. Learn from it to obey the laws of the harmony. 

— " Light on the Path." 

In the old crusading days, when King Richard 
was returning to England after his battles with 
Saladin, he was taken prisoner by an Austrian 
baron and confined in his castle. Richard's com- 
rade, Blondel, the troubadour, sought his place of 
concealment in order to release him. He went 



266 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

wandering through Europe singing his minstrel 
lays outside castle walls and under tower windows 
in the hope that Richard might recognize his voice 
and know that rescue was at hand. At last he 
came to the Austrian dungeon. As he sung the 
old-time ballads there floated to his ear at last 
the familiar tones of his friend taking up the 
answering part of a song in which they had often 
joined. 

Blondel hastened back to England, raised the 
ransom demanded for the king, and speedily 
accomplished his release. 

This story is beautifully suggestive of the history 
of the soul. 

Coming down through the forgotten ages of 
spirit life, man has wandered into matter. He 
seems to be a captive to the senses. Why he 
needed to come at all he may not have yet dis- 
covered. He only knows that every experience is 
valuable in the history of his evolution. He feels 
that his first and greatest need is freedom. Assured 
of this, all suffering would cease. 

Liberty is the watchword of the world. All 
modern wars are undertaken in its name ; all 
colonization schemes developed. We recognize it 
as the first condition of unfoldment. 

Much has been said of the danger of losing our 
souls. 

Can we ever be more lost than we are to-day? 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 267 

As we awaken to real life do we not find our- 
selves and learn that matter is not an enemy, nor 
is the soul really fettered by the senses unless with 
its own consent. If we prefer the lower to the 
higher self our powers decline and our perceptions 
become dimmed, while even the sense life grows 
clouded and dull. We seem then to be cramped 
and shackled by material existence. The truth is 
dawning upon the world that the soul is always 
free and has the power of controlling and spirit- 
ualizing matter. As we become alive to what we 
are we hear the voice of spirit sounding in notes 
that are not wholly unfamiliar. New confidence 
and gladness are awakened in us, and we take up 
the responsive strains. 

The first step toward freedom is right listening. 

The next step is right answering to our part in 
the song of life. 

It has been discovered that the reason some 
people do not easily learn a foreign language is 
not that they cannot pronounce well, but that they 
do not hear well. 

Consequently the first work of the teacher is to 
open the ear of the pupil. 

Nothing in life is of greater importance than 
that we should learn the law of harmony. 

If we hear truly we shall live truly. Our higher 
self is lifting up its voice continually in song for 
our deliverance, but we hear only broken chords, 



268 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL, 

— we are so deafened by the tumult of the world 
in which we live. 

The ear is a wonderful avenue of sense. More 
than eight thousand delicate nerves lead from it to 
the brain. As yet they are only partially devel- 
oped. The average range of human hearing in- 
cludes about twenty thousand vibrations to the 
second. The extreme limits appear to lie between 
sixteen and forty-two thousand. 

Many insects hear a lower vibration and some 
animals a higher one than reaches our mortal 
ears. 

Scientists tell us that a sound wave goes on 
forever. 

The ether becomes a reservoir of sound that 
never perishes. Let us think for a moment of 
the tones that have been poured into it through 
the ages : nature's voices of earthquake and tor- 
nado, the roar of waters and of forest fires, the 
rustling of leaves, the humming of insects, and 
the songs of birds. There are, besides, alas ! the 
noises of battle, the shouts of victors, and the 
groans and cries of wounded men. 

Then, too, there are melodious strains — great 
bursts of organ music and chorus songs of wor- 
shippers, the prattle of children and the laughter 
of mirth and joy. 

All human emotions have contributed to the 
song of life. 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 269 

We may draw from this great reservoir of sound 
at will. 

We may listen to the bass notes of human 
passion and suffering or to the lighter, higher 
strains of gladness. All have their place and 
purpose in the scale of being. 

Through currents of sympathetic vibration the 
sounds to which we are attuned will reach our 
ears. If we hear only the lower tones of pain 
and sorrow all life seems to us a cry. If we are 
ourselves in grief we listen to minor chords. If 
we are selfish we hear the notes of selfishness. 
If we are happy we hear those of joy. Every- 
thing depends upon the place that we ourselves 
hold in the chromatic scale, whether we are most 
related to the wailings or rejoicings of the race. 
It is as true as that we choose the evening 
concert according to our taste in music. Our free- 
dom of choice and action is as complete in one 
case as the other. 

All life has speech and is never silent. The 
bitter cry of outcast London and the moans of 
famine-stricken hordes in India are as real as the 
song of the morning stars. If our ears were not 
so dull we would hear all these notes in their true 
relation to the symphony of life. We would not 
then be pained through our imperfect listening. 
As we develop spiritual sensitiveness and better 
understanding we will widen our range of hearing 



270 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

and learn from nature that which will bring all 
sounds into harmony. 

We will listen to the higher as well as the lower 
octaves. We will perceive the " motif" which 
runs through all the song, where now we hear, 
as well as see, imperfectly. 

If King Richard had been deaf to Blondel's 
voice it would not have brought his deliverance. 

If he had not sung the answering part his prison 
doors would never have been opened. 

What makes the soul deaf to truth? What are 
the obstructions to right listening? Let us exam- 
ine some of the laws of the harmony. Perhaps 
oftener than in anything else we fail through dis- 
couragement. We do not take life genially. 

We moan at our own vexations, and the atmos- 
phere in which we live seems filled with cries of 
disappointment and distress. Dissatisfaction with 
ourselves and our own lot dulls all sense of har- 
mony. 

If we have ever crossed the ocean we know that 
when we traced our course upon the chart in the 
cabin it never showed the shortest distance between 
two points. Yet we had sailed upon the most 
direct lines the winds made possible. When we 
were blown off by storms we set such canvas as 
the gales permitted, and our storm sails brought us 
back to the right tack. Our compass was always 
true to the north, regardless of wind and weather. 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 2J\ 

We never had reason for discouragement, and 
safely made port at last. 

Why can we not take life as cheerily as the 
sailor takes his changeful voyage? We can never 
pay too dearly for experience, for it is all we get 
of any value here. Our suffering proves our need 
of the lesson that causes it. If it teaches us to 
listen more carefully to the inner voice we have 
made a distinct gain in spiritual hearing. 

Discouragement results in pity for ourselves. 
This is a further cause of deafness ; self-pity is an 
opiate that benumbs the nerves of a higher con- 
sciousness. 

In trying to evade our own responsibilities we 
deepen trouble and emphasize weakness. Our 
ear is at fault because we are not teachable. We 
will not patiently listen to the truth. We resent 
criticism because we are not seeking for our own 
weak points. We are not honest pupils of our 
higher selves. Sensitiveness to pain shows an 
unsound part. 

Grief, too, makes us deaf to the song of life. 
We look into a grave. It seems so wide and deep 
it shuts out all the world of life. It is as if the sun 
had set in inky darkness and the clouds of our 
sorrow hang heavily about us. We do not wish 
to be comforted. We are dismayed or angry. 
We see only the great horror — Death. We hear 
only " Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes." 



272 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

If we will but listen to the higher voice we will 
even now know that death means only change of 
consciousness. It means fresh opportunities that 
bring new steps of progress to the awakening 
soul. If we will listen we shall hear : 

"A music that entwineth with eternal threads of golden 

sound 
The great poem of this strange existence, 
All whose wondrous meaning has been found. 1 ' 

Let us turn our thoughts from the body to that 
which alone made the body dear to us, the loving 
and imperishable intelligence that animated it. 
This we cannot lose, for there is no separation to 
kindred spirits. If we will open our ears we will 
hear a new strain of gladness in the song of life 
— a clearer note that has been added to the Choir 
Invisible. 

Another influence that dulls our hearing is 
resentment. We are impatient at the ills and 
inconveniences of life. We resent our pains and 
seeming helplessness. We cultivate the sense of 
vexation which comes from unpleasant people and 
undesirable conditions. As long as we indulge 
these feelings we prolong our difficulties. We 
must learn friendliness to all events and people 
that touch upon our lives. We need not dwell 
upon the things that most distress us, except to 
gain from them some larger knowledge of the laws 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 2J$ 

of harmony. If this is our most earnest purpose 
we will quickly find that everything contributes 
to its accomplishment. 

Indecision is another note of inharmony. The 
more we listen to discordance the more the ear 
gets out of tune. If we have not reached a final 
decision in our own minds that we can be well and 
happy and prosperous, if we are not yet quite sure 
that life is really good and sweet and joyous in it- 
self, we are not likely to hear melodious tones. 

The work of reconstruction begins with action 
of the will. 

With confidence in life restored and a true pur- 
pose assured, we will soon find our hearing is 
enlarged. The sound waves change their charac- 
ter and pass from grave to gay. We find in the 
song the ripples of merriment where once all was 
mournful and sad. We hear and see according to 
our moods as long as we permit our feelings to 
govern our lives. In the mist of the emotions all 
vibrations are refracted and unreliable. 

But the one great hindrance to right hearing, 
which sums up and includes all others, is that 
most common weakness of humanity — fear. Fear 
is the great strangler. How we pride ourselves 
upon the faithfulness of " conscience " in applying 
its torture ! An accusing conscience is the hand- 
maiden of fear. It has never been baptized into 
the freedom of the spirit. It dwells in bottom 



274 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

lands infested with the ghosts of a dead past. It 
remembers chiefly disappointments and disasters. 
It feeds upon the bread of remorse. 

It is deaf to the stirring strains of the song of 
life that should arouse every soul to the enjoyment 
of an ever-present opportunity and power. 

It was just as necessary that Richard's voice 
should reach the ear of Blondel as that the tones 
of the troubadour should make his own presence 
known. 

So must we sing clearly our answering part. It 
is through our response to spiritual chords that we 
rind the way out of our houses of bondage. 

We must answer in tones of confidence. We 
must drop the word and thought of limitations, 
must forget our prison days, let go the past, 
abandon our discouragements, self-pity, grief, and 
fear. 

We will claim the strength that is our birthright. 
We will go forward in the confidence of victory 
with which men follow the flag, reckless of all 
threatening danger. 

Our ready response shall be in tones of gladness, 
ringing clear and true without a quavering note. 

We will not talk of faith only when we have the 
luxuries and superfluities of life. We will not 
moan when everything seems to be going away 
from us on an ebb tide. True gladness opens to 
us visions of unclouded skies. 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 275 

The land of the soul is never swept by storms ; 
it is never shadowed by darkness and uncertain- 
ties. There is in it no fear of evil. 

This is our native home. We have never 
strayed from it except in thought. When we 
clear up our thought atmospheres we recognize 
again the familiar landscape. We know that 
all our distress has been a fantasy of the dis- 
ordered senses. We have been bullied by shad- 
ows. 

Now we will answer the song of the soul with 
a new sense of freedom. We will not creep any 
longer. We will arise and walk, and will not 
sneer if we are told that even wings are not the 
especial property of angels and artists. Perhaps 
some day we will learn to fly and be as careless of 
the breaking of the boughs beneath us as the birds 
who know their home is in the air. 

We will meet all the experiences of life in tones 
of patience. We will not utter fretful complaints. 
We will not care if every day is not served up to 
us with all the niceties and dainties we have coveted. 
We will console ourselves with the reflection that 
our place is where we find ourselves, and our 
proper work is that in which we are engaged, till 
we have fitted ourselves for something different. 
We will no longer live in such a fever of un- 
rest. We will not exhaust ourselves with con- 
stant hurry. There is surely time and opportu- 



276 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL.. 

nity for everything in life that we should do. The 
centuries are ours. If we do not find time to live 
we shall very soon be forced to find time to die. 
Life administers severe rebukes to our impatience 
when we make it necessary. Nothing is more 
valuable than to learn how to wait cheerfully. It 
is good evidence that we are answering life's song 
in notes of power. Can we imagine infinite love 
that would be satisfied with children that were 
paupers? Can we believe that anything less than 
the largest good it could bestow would satisfy a 
love that is supreme? We have surely the right 
to claim for man all that we have ever thought of 
God. 

If we are capable of conceiving love it is because 
we ourselves are loving. We understand wisdom 
to the extent that we are wise. We believe in 
power because we have its possibilities within us. 

" I am an acme of things accomplished, I am 
an encloser of things to be," is the answer of the 
soul to the challenge of life. 

il The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom 
shall I be afraid? " 

Power is expressed in positive conditions. We 
cannot afford to risk the negatives. There is no 
danger to the fearless soul. All force seeks his 
service. 

Power attracts power, as strong men enroll 
themselves under the banners of successful leaders. 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 2^] 

The highest and best things are never behind us. 
The choicest fruit is on the topmost branches. 

The soul will never be satisfied with mediocrity. 
From every level it perceives another height 
towering above it and pushes forward strong and 
buoyant in the spirit of conquest and with no 
sense of weariness. 

We will answer life's song in a spirit of service. 

Service is the law of harmony as it is the law of 
love. 

It is in activities for others that we gain the 
largest freedom for ourselves. 

In teaching others songs of gladness we open 
fountains of melody in our own hearts. In guiding 
others to the light our twilight is dispelled. In 
feeding others we appease our hunger. In help- 
ing others we grow strong. 

We are never without our opportunities of 
service. Every opportunity brings with it its 
own power. Every sincere thought or act of help- 
fulness is an impulse of spiritual development. 

We think sometimes that it belongs to those 
who possess to give. 

Possession comes through giving, and not giving 
through possession. 

The universal stores of God are open to every 
honest demand. God's work is never hindered 
for the want of supplies. Our theories of benevo- 
lence are often at fault, and we are apt to think the 



2/8 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

thing we ought to give is that which we cannot 
command. 

Responsibility and opportunity never exist 
apart. If we discover one we may know that the 
other is close at hand. 

When we have learned that every human being 
is a part of the harmony we very soon begin to 
know its laws. When we are ready to obey 
them the discords of life are ended. 

If the race had understood this the records 
of history would never have been blotted with 
blood ; the drama of the stage would never be 
the picturing of crime and pathos; the worship 
of the temples would never be voiced in " Mis- 
ereres " and confessions ; the minor strains of 
life would never have found such utterances as 
these ; religion would not have been a " binding 
back ; " worship would never have become a cry 
of terror; creeds would not have been required 
as the expression of man's fears and superstitions. 
Of all the religions in the world there are none 
but what belittle human life and darken earth to 
brighten Heaven. The retina of the eye receives 
all images reversed, but the brain restores them to 
proper attitudes. The senses thus invert the 
truths of life. It is the soul alone that can inter- 
pret the vision. 

Before the soul has been awakened we cannot 
understand the meaning of existence. All our 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 2JQ 

deities reveal the crudeness of our thought. Our 
images are blurred ; our negative plates are so 
imperfect that we cannot get clear outlines in the 
positive picture. The lights and shadows are 
confused. 

Man has successively outgrown all his Deities 
from Joss to Jehovah. 

But still we grope in a world of unreality and think 
of happiness as something vague and far away. 

Adown the centuries has come the voice of one 
whom Christians call " the Master." Legend and 
superstition have combined to make his accents 
fragmentary and uncertain. Dogmatists and trans- 
lators have done what they could to mutilate the 
message. But out of all this babel of commenta- 
tors we know to-day that the Nazarene's tones are 
so full of melody that when the ear of man has 
heard his whole soul listens. He hears anew the 
song of life and finds in it the grandest harmonies 
of earth. Jesus taught life as a science speaking 
with authority. The scribes have turned his 
teachings into weak, moral platitudes. Christian- 
ity itself has never proved a failure. It has never 
been tried. It has been taught as a theory. It 
has been followed as a " faith." But never yet 
has the Christian world believed it would be 
practical until after a " second advent " had trans- 
formed man and altered his conditions. How 
strangely deluded we have been ! How could the 



280 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

trail to the mines of truth have become so com- 
pletely hidden? How could we have lived so 
long with an inverted vision and listened so long 
to the discords of theology ? We have not thought 
it possible to learn the lesson of harmony outside 
the music schools of the Celestial City. 

And now new voices from the unseen reveal to us 
that the earth life confers on man a privilege that 
angels covet ; that here are the choicest fields in all 
the universe for the soul's harvesting ; that we are 
as yet but pioneers blazing a path through matter, 
clearing the ground upon which shall be built the 
White City itself, with its jewelled gates and 
golden streets, rich symbols of such glories as the 
undeveloped mind cannot yet outline in its gross 
conceptions of life. Here are the highest problems 
of the soul worked out. Here will its stately man- 
sions be built. Even now we faintly discern new 
notes in the great song as it is sung by human 
voices such as have not been heard for many cent- 
uries. 

Now we really know for the first time that the 
law of love is the law of life, and that the golden 
rule is the most scientific proposition that has ever 
been submitted to a sceptical world. 

We are even beginning to suspect that it is the 
only rock foundation upon which man can rear his 
governments, his social orders, or his financial 
institutions. All else is sand that many tides have 



THE SONG OF LIFE. 28 1 

washed away before our eyes. The law of har- 
mony permits no note of selfishness. The Sermon 
on the Mount is but a transposition of the science 
of Euclid. It is a key to all the mysteries that 
surround us. 

By and by we shall find the fulcrum of the lever 
Archimedes coveted, with which we can move the 
earth itself. 

By and by we shall call across the stellar spaces 
and wake the echoes of the distant stars. 

The seven planets will be compassed by the cir- 
cuit of our telephones. Our wireless telegraphy 
will send its messages to other spheres than ours. 

On planes yet unexplored we will apply the 
spiritual principles we are learning here. 

By and by we shall hear the song of a larger 
life and know the beauty of the astral harmonies. 

The musical staff as we have it to-day has been 
the growth of centuries. One generation after 
another has added line by line as it found its 
scope too small. Man's sense life has expanded 
with his spiritual consciousness — one sense fol- 
lowing another. His constantly increasing range 
of sensibility has demanded larger expression in 
music as well as literature. 

The lines of the staff are the number of the 
senses. But musical instruments are very incom- 
plete. We are told by a recent writer in " Atheism 
and Mathematics " that to get complete command 



282 DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL. 

over all the keys used in modern music would re- 
quire an instrument having seventy-two notes in 
every octave — that earth's instruments are out of 
tune, and no one can tune or play them perfectly. 

This same author asserts that man's vocal organs 
are so carefully planned and constructed in accor- 
dance with mathematical and mechanical laws 
that they can produce every possible grade and 
shade of sound within a compass of a hundred to 
a thousand vibrations per second. 

The time will come when in a grander chorus 
these human voices will utter sweeter songs than 
ever yet have been sung or written. 

To-day we are but learning single notes. 

To-morrow we shall blend them into chords. 

The hour will chime when all humanity shall 
know the law of harmony — when every note in 
every chord shall find its part in the sublime 
oratorio of universal life. 



DISCOVERY OF A LOST TRAIL 

By Charles B. Newcomb Author of " All's Right 
with the World" 282 pages Cloth $1.50 

" Discovery of a Lost Trail " is a simple study of that strange and beau- 
tiful thing which we call life, but grand in its scholarly simplicity. In the 
words of the author, " plain suggestions of confidence, patience, gladness, 
and decision often bring us back to the trail we have lost through the un- 
certainty of our own power and freedom." 

The writer has not aimed at metaphysical fugues or oratorios. He points 
out only familiar signboards that have helped some bewildered travellers to 
find their way in paths which seemed mountainous and difficult. 

ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD 

By Charles B. Newcomb Third Edition i2mo 
Cloth $1.50 

A volume of earnest, thoughtful essays, devoted to the interpretation of 
the inner life of man, the power of thought in the cause and cure of dis- 
ease, and the inculcation of the optimistic philosophy of daily life known 
as "The New Thought." 

" All's Right with the World " is a notable and substantial addition to 
the literature of the new mental and spiritual philosophy. Almost every 
page is radiant with a light which is well calculated to dispel the clouds of 
pessimism, inspire right thinking and living, and hasten soul-growth.— 
Henry Wood. 



HELPS TO RIGHT LIVING 

By Katharine H. Newcomb 52 chapters Cloth 
$1.25 

This book contains certain principles of the higher spiritual philosophy 
adapted to the uses of life, its purpose being to strengthen character and 
insure health through the development of the interior consciousness. 

Mrs. Newcomb is satisfied to state the law of spiritual development as 
she has learned it through individual experience rather than from the testi- 
mony of others. There is no effort to prove her affirmations of truth by the 
logic of the senses, or by citation of authority beyond the recognition of a 
kindred thought uttered by philosopher and poet. 

The simplicity and directness with which the truths it contains are set 
forth will aid much, I feel, in making it of great value to many readers. In 
addition to its bringing a certain peace and tranquillity into their lives it 
will also aid in pointing out to them the great fact that each can determine 
and rule the world — his world — from within. — Ralph Waldo Trine. 



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